


Condition of Complete Simplicity

by Renega



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, TS Eliot, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-16 04:40:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16947183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renega/pseuds/Renega
Summary: If life is a spiral, do we get closer to the circle on each pass?A fluffy exploration of the circular nature of time, inspired by TS Eliot.This is complete (has been for six years O_o) so I'll be posting as close as I can to daily until it's all up.





	1. September 19

**May 1, 1998**  
Quick now, here, now, always-  
Ridiculous the sad waste of time  
Stretching before and after.

**May 1, 2012**  
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older  
the world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated  
Of dead and living.

**May 1, 1999**  
For our own past is covered by the currents of action,  
But the torment of others remains an experience  
Unqualified, unworn by subsequent attrition.  
People change, and smile: but the agony abides.

**May 1, 2013**  
If you came this way,  
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,  
At any time or at any season,  
It would always be the same: you would have to put off  
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,  
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity  
Or carry report. You are here to kneel  
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more  
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation  
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.  
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,  
They can tell you, being dead: the communication  
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.

 

**September 19, 1998**

“Hermione! There’s our birthday girl!”

I’m out of breath from running. My hair is coming loose and I can feel bits of it plastered to the sweat on my cheeks. I’ve probably got ink on my nose so I swipe my sleeve across it, hiding the temporary loss of a smile. I’m ecstatic to see them but also wary, defensive, because last time we were all together Ron and I had an enormous row. Ginny and Luna are already here, and Harry’s arm is round Ginny’s waist. Luna is sitting across from her, and then there’s an empty seat. Then Neville, smiling and clapping, shouting “Happy Birthday”. Ron’s gaze is fixed on the far wall, and he looks bored and irritated. Petulant. Harry’s drug him along. My stomach twists with the knowledge of how fragile, how circumstantial our friendship was. It couldn’t survive a dearth of war, couldn’t survive the rhythms of a regular life. The attraction is gone, fled the moment I realized that his version of Hermione and mine couldn’t coexist, but I still miss the friendship. I thought we were great friends, once.  
  
Harry reaches me, wraps me in a hug and pulls me up so that I’m dangling with my toes brushing the floor. I cling, starved for affection, and squeeze him tightly as he sets me down.  
  
“Missed you, Harry.”  
  
He looks a little pensive, but just for a moment, and then he carefully offers “You don’t have to stay here.”  
  
I shake my head. No, and no again. I do have to stay here, as I’ve said before. “Not again, please.”  
  
“All right. Let’s get you a butterbeer, yeah?”  
  
I sit between Luna and Neville. There’s an awkward exchange of pleasantries with Ron, during which Harry looks increasingly distressed, and so Ginny – as always – jumps in and saves the conversation by telling Neville all the things he’s missing at Hogwarts now that she’s Head Girl and Luna’s the Ravenclaw 7th-year prefect. I listen to this with half an ear, laughing at the appropriate moments, but if I’m honest I also feel a little left out. I wasn’t here last year. They have all these inside jokes, these stories that I don’t share. I love Hogwarts and I’m happy here, but somehow I’m no longer part of the social fabric. No one really treats me as a student, not even Ginny and Luna.  
  
The boys look smart in their red auror robes, and I’m a little surprised when I suddenly notice that somehow Neville has become handsome. Not just passable, but…terribly good-looking.  
I find my gaze flitting between him and Luna, wondering if something more than friendship will blossom there. That would be lovely.  
  
Which is no doubt exactly what everyone thinks about Ron and I. Wouldn’t it be lovely? I know it’s Harry’s fondest wish, and Harry’s is Ginny’s and Molly’s and Molly’s is Arthur’s. It’s an endless circle, and it really would be lovely if only it would account for the fact that Ron doesn’t like me very much.  
  
Ron is still staring into space as if he’s not here. I realize Harry’s noticed me looking at Ron, and I cringe as I feel his fingers tugging at my hand under the table. It’s too late to pretend it didn’t happen, so I look up and nod and then Harry and I extricate ourselves and head for the door. We fall into step beside each other, and we don’t really have a fixed destination but we wander together as we’ve always done.  
  
I can’t explain my love for Harry. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, so I don’t know if it’s really like that or not. I just know that it feels like we’ve always been friends, always been this close. I can remember a time when he wasn’t my companion, and those were lonely years; years where there were people, even kids who visited to play and went to the zoo with us and came to my birthday parties, but they weren’t really friends. I couldn’t talk to them.  
  
I don’t care what they say; we’re always going to be friends. Even if Ron and I can’t find our way back to friendship, Harry and I will always have this bond between us, one that goes as deep as family, all the way down to our bones. Marrow is thicker than blood.  
  
We come to the fence, and pause. Before us, up the hill, is the Shrieking Shack. I’ve just now noticed the direction we’ve headed and I stare up at the bare wood beams, the crazy tilted angle of the walls. The thing is going to implode one of these days, fall in on itself. Isn’t anyone tending to it?  
  
I feel Harry’s thumb rubbing the skin around my jaw, and he lets out a little hoarse chuckle. “You’ve got ink on your cheek, like old times. Isn’t anybody taking care of you?”  
  
I push his shoulder with my hands playfully, shoving him away. “As if I need a keeper!”  
  
“Keeper, seeker, I don’t care what position he plays. We need to find you a bloke.”  
  
I roll my eyes, but my smile ruins the effect. He’s trying to tell me it’s okay if I don’t bend myself into a twist in order to meet Ron’s needs, and it feels good to know that Harry can accept it, that he won’t hold it against me. “I don’t want a bloke, Harry. I just want to make a difference.”  
  
“Merlin, haven’t you already?” I hear disbelief in his voice, even wonder. It never crossed my mind that he doesn’t feel this also, this sense of the battle having just begun to take shape. There’s still so much to do, so much to learn, so many things that need to be fixed. It’s difficult to know where to begin. I feel like I’m flying without a broom, pulled on some invisible current. If I keep learning, opportunities will come. Already I’m learning to live with this sensation that things were broken – things which will be difficult or impossible to mend. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies, and in that sense my kingdom is ruined. Hogwarts is just a place to begin.  
  
Harry shifts beside me, mussing his hair. It’s a nervous gesture, so my senses sharpen. “Right, Hermione – “  
  
“Just spit it out.”  
  
He nods toward the shack, and I realize that he led me here deliberately, and I know what he’s about to say. “The Minister is having him declared deceased this week so that the Wizengamot –“  
  
“Damn it, Harry!” But it isn’t his fault. I know he wants to believe – maybe more than I do, because his is personal. Mine is just fury at the injustice of it all, dosed with regret for things I’ve done – in ignorance, but done all the same. I swing my leg over the fence and draw my wand, and I know that Harry is right behind me.  
  
“Kingsley’s tried to find him, you know that, but we’re at the point where he can’t put any more into it unless we’re calling it a manhunt. If he really is out there, do you think he’d rather be a criminal than a dead hero?”  
  
Harry can be really insensitive the way he says things, but I know what he’s trying to say. I understand it. It’s just –  
  
“He wasn’t dead when we left him, but until – “ Until I saw what death actually looked like, up close, when you touch skin that used to thrum with energy and find that it feels as if you’re touching stone, feels like something strange and inorganic, when you see the jaw distended and eyes like paper and the lips peeled and static...until Fred and Tonks and Professor Lupin…  
  
“If he wasn’t, he was close.” Harry says it with the authority of one who’s seen a lot more of death than I have, so I have to accept it as truth.  
  
Maybe. Maybe he was. By the time it occurred to me – this is death, and it’s not how Severus Snape looked, felt – and I’d crawled back through the tunnel, he was gone. Professor Snape – or his body, because there was blood everywhere and surely nobody could’ve survived that and fled under their power – had disappeared.  
  
Did I want him to be a fugitive or a blessed martyr? I don’t think he’d want either. All told, I’m pretty sure if he had a choice he’d want to be alive. And left alone.  
  
So does it really matter? I pull my wand, focus all the energy and emotion I’ve wasted on pressing Harry and The Minister and Minerva to search until they found him, and work it into a preservation spell so strong I’m pretty sure the Shrieking Shack will last almost as long as the castle. At least his resting place will – “Conservare In Memoria.”  
  
“Merlin’s Bloody Arse!”  
  
I drop my wand, aghast at what I’ve done. I’d meant to keep it from falling apart at the first Windmonath gust.  
  
“That’s…it’s…”  
  
It’s beautiful. The wood is dark, the windows warm and yellow instead of jagged and splintered. The house still tilts at odd angles, but now the planes all nest together. There’s some sort of dark red moss covering one side of the…it’s much more of a cottage than a shack now, so the name doesn’t fit…domicile…mausoleum…structure in front of us. It’s too edgy to be like the homes in Witch’s Weekly, but just as striking.  
  
I sigh. “Why do I feel like we always get it wrong? It’s one indignity after another, you know. I was trying to help but he’d hate this. You know he would.”  
  
Harry whistles. “It’s a really nice house. I can almost forget everything that happened here. Happy Birthday Us.”  
  
I laugh. It feels so good to laugh. Harry pulls me in, and I lay my head against his shoulder. The night isn’t so cold we can’t stand out here a while longer. Harry’s mourning right now, because even though he knows that it’s all arbitrary and political he still really seems to believe that once Kingsley Shacklebolt signs the Certificatorium Morte Professor Snape will die. Officially.  
  
That’s just how Harry thinks. My mind churns with possibilities, hundreds of them. Anything could have happened, really.  
  
“Rest in Peace, Sev,” he says gravely, and I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing again. He’s so earnest, trying so hard to honor Professor Snape in his mum’s place, but I’ve seen that vial of memories and I knew Professor Snape, and if he’s dead he’s rolling in his grave at Harry’s familiarity and presumption.

**September 19, 2012**

“It’s eleven o’clock, Granger. What are you doing here?”  
  
I hold up the bottle of Ogden’s, wave it in the air, then drop it back on the table. “Drinking, obviously. What are you doing?”  
  
He edges closer to me. “It’s my night.”  
  
“Ah.” I take another drink. Instead of leaving, he sits down across from me, transfigures a tumbler, and pours himself a finger. He holds it up, examining the flames.  
  
“This is swill. What are we drinking to?”  
  
“Thirty-fucking three, huzzah.” I’m drunk, probably – or I’m just so tired that it feels that way. “Sorry,” I clarify. “Sorry. Minerva’s health, of course.”  
  
“Slainte mhath,” he responds, and sips at the whisky. He’s on duty, whatever that means. Playing Headmaster for the night with no more authority than Umbridge wielded. “It’s your birthday?”  
  
I nod, hoping we can skim past it. But no, he looks at me with something like pity. “Have you had any sleep?”  
  
I nod to the stack of books on the table, to the tome that lies open in front of me. “I’m researching curses. I haven’t found anything yet.”  
  
“St. Mungo’s best are working on it.” He sounds dismissive, as if he doesn’t think that the Hogwarts librarian has any business dabbling in something the experts have already covered, and he’s probably right. I can’t just sit here any longer, though, while Minerva lies comatose in the infirmary and the castle attacks itself.  
  
Entire rooms have closed themselves off since Minerva collapsed. The healers have described it as a sort of occlumency; her brain is active, but she’s vegetative, unable to respond to stimuli.  
  
“I can’t just do nothing,” I say, swiping at my eyes with my fingers. I can’t imagine anything worse than crying in front of him. “I keep asking myself what Professor Snape would do if he were here, and –“  
  
“He’s dead, Granger. We’re the adults now. You’re thirty-three, too old not to take better care of yourself.”  
  
“Piss off, Malfoy,” I snap, but I’m laughing a little.  
  
He dumps the remainder of his drink in my glass and then transfigures his tumbler back into the signet ring it began as.  
  
“Happy birthday,” he whispers, and exits the library as quietly as he entered it.

**September 19, 1998**

“You haven’t eaten a thing,” I chide. The bowl is still full, and he hasn’t touched the spoon I left on the table or the teacup. I don’t know what to do; I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea.  
  
And yet I can’t help but think that I didn’t have a choice once I realized that it had already been done.  
  
I never bothered to ask how it worked; efficacy, not method, as always.  
  
It’s too late for second-guessing. I sit down on the bed. His body is stiff and rigid, but he won’t push me away. He doesn’t lash out, he curls inward. He retreats. And now he doesn’t eat, or drink. He’s starving himself.  
  
“Severus, please,” I beg, rubbing my hands together.  
  
I don’t try to touch him anymore. I wouldn’t have in the first place except that in those first feverish weeks he clung to me and I let him. Sometimes he called me Lily, or Poppy. Minerva. Mum. A few times, toward the end of that stage, he called me Granger, as if he almost understood. Since he came to his senses though, since I told him what I’ve done and why we’re here, he hasn’t spoken. His eyes are lucid, but cold.  
  
I made him my prisoner, my dependent, when all he wanted was freedom. There’s freedom in death. I realize that now that it’s too late. And I’m scared, so scared that this won’t end up the way I believed it would. I’m trying not to cry. It won’t make what I have to say any easier. It’s easier if I look at the wall, with its pink floral wallpaper, or the curtain fluttering in the breeze.  
  
“Right now, I’m standing with Harry outside the Shrieking Shack. He’s going to tell me that everyone’s given you up for dead.” I pause, and I glance pointedly at the teacup. “You seem determined this once to prove him right.”  
  
No trace of a smile. I didn’t expect one, but…perhaps I hoped. I swallow and look away again. “The choice wasn’t mine to make. It still isn’t, but…I needed your help. I did it because Dumbledore said…if I ever felt like we were going to fail…”  
  
It’s a lame excuse. It sounds lame when I say it. Dumbledore meant fail in defeating Voldemort, and we both know that. He didn’t mean if we had some problem we couldn’t solve on our own, no matter how minor, no matter how distant in the future. He isn’t responsible for any of it. “Forget I said that. I know I had no right to do this. I’m sorry. It doesn’t fix anything but I’m sorry.”  
  
He doesn’t move. His breathing is even and unlabored, his eyes shuttered and dark and gazing into the middle distance. He’s wearing a black jumper beneath the sheets, and probably track pants as well.  
  
I haven’t seen his skin beneath the clothing since he came to consciousness, and then it was pale and fragile and dry from the venom and antivenin and antibiotics and strengthening potions. He was already too thin and now he’s nothing more than skin and bones.  
  
I take a deep breath. He spent much more time preparing me to face the truth; I’m so unprepared. I rest my chin on my hands and sigh, expelling all of the air until I rasp. “That’s bollocks. We both know it. Severus – “  
  
There’s a slight rustle behind me. He’s moved; I don’t turn to see how much.  
  
“You asked me to do this. Just before I left.”  
  
I don’t extrapolate. From here on, it’s on him to come to his own conclusions, to ask the questions he needs to ask. He’d do – has done – the same for me.  
  
After a long moment, the bed begins to shake. Fucking hell; I’ve made him cry. I don’t look back at him as I push myself off the mattress and walk out of the room. He’s got no dignity left; I do my best to spare what shreds I can.

**September 19, 2012**

The cat is on my feet, the house is quiet, and the wine is good. I’m in bed with a book and a slice of cake. It’s chocolate ganache with a marzipan layer – heaven on earth.  
  
This is heaven. I don’t want to leave it, but I will surrender it, hopefully temporarily. Soon. Not yet, not yet. The door creaks and I drop my book on the bed. I try to chew the cake as attractively as one can chew a jaw full of pastry, which is to say – not very. Ginny’s the only one who ever managed.  
  
It happens. I feel that twist in my chest, a burst of melancholy, but this time it’s followed by envy as I stare at the man in the doorway. So soon now, he’ll have them all.  
  
He doesn’t notice that my mood’s just soured. He tosses the book on the floor, crawls under the covers, and then kisses me before I’ve had a chance to swallow the last of my cake and it should be gross because he’s licking the crumbs from the roof of my mouth as his fingers hook under the waistband of my fuzziest, most disgusting track pants.  
  
“Sev’rus –“ I warn. I’m not really in the mood, but that’s never stopped him because he knows how easy I am to seduce. What he wants is usually what he gets – his fingers are winding into the hair behind my ears, and he lowers his mouth to my ear.  
  
“John’s asleep.” He bites his way down my neck, sliding my fuzzy bottoms over my hips. My stomach is pudgy and my breasts have been ravaged by gravity but he never seems to notice or care. His fingers slide over my skin, rubbing and caressing and pinching by turns, and he buries one of his hands between my legs. “It’s going to be a long seven months without you.”  
  
The fire catches, and inflames. He’s whispering happy birthday and my name between nips at my breasts.  
  
An image – a memory – flashes through my mind. My skin was soft, not fresh but still smooth and supple. Beautiful. I was beautiful.  
  
Now I understand why he looked at me the way he did, full of fire and adoration.  
  
He’s paused, he’s removing his jeans and pants. There’s a bit of gray at his temples, in the stubble on his cheeks. I love him more now than ever, when we’re about to come full circle. We’ve always been heading to the place where I let him go and hope he’ll come back to me, and somehow we’re almost there.  
  
“I’m going to seduce you,” he whispers.  
  
He doesn’t believe it, this future I’ve laid out before him. He’ll do it, because I’m asking, but he doesn’t believe it.  
  
He tells John he’s got to go away for a while. He tells him he’ll be back.  
  
He won’t. He’ll never come back here. I can feel it in my bones.  
  
I can feel it through his skin, where it lays against mine; the fire, the pent up energy, the magic that courses through his veins.  
  
This isn’t his life. His life is there.  
  
He slides into me. He is fifty-two, neither old nor young, and he’s a powerful man. He’s at ease with himself, with his life. He loves us – then, now, always. All of us, because love isn’t some sort of finite resource. It’s the only thing that increases the more that we give it away. Love is what’s calling him home.  
  
He slides into me with a grunt and a moan, and then begins rocking against me, his sharp pubic bone drawing supplications from my lungs and the strength from my muscles. I give in; I surrender.  
  
Love is what’s happening between these walls, right here, right now.  
  
Time contracts and recedes. I finish; he follows.  
  
He tucks his head against my neck, his breath hot against my skin. “You first made me laugh on your birthday, you know.”  
  
He’s wrong. I remember the first time I made him laugh. In my memory, it’s when I called him a hero. In his, it’s when I set fire to the Aga, finally drawing him from his room. Neither were on my birthday.  
  
“When you blamed this whole cock-up on me,” he explains.  
  
At first I have no idea what he’s talking about. And then the memory of my worst birthday, my thirty-fourth, comes back to me. I don’t have any memory of him laughing. He cried, and then –  
  
“You were laughing? I thought I’d made you cry!”  
  
And he does it again, laughing silently, with tears on his cheeks. He’s laughing so hard the bed is shaking.  
  
And the only difference is that now I can see him, and I know what this is.


	2. October 31

**October 31, 1998**

I find it easier if I talk to him aloud, as I sit here in his sanctum sanctorum where Minerva has sent the boxes from the Headmaster’s Quarters the year I wasn’t here.

“Who were you? I don’t know. A puzzle, a mystery.”

A Slytherin scarf, old enough to be a relic from his school years, is spelled into a pile for Draco.

I hold the photo that was wrapped in it for a while, studying it.

“I found the other half of this picture in Grimmauld; it’s still in my bag. I should give them both back to Harry, I know. I will. I promise I will.”

I understand, I think. She’s beautiful; she’s a female Harry. She’s full of so much fire and hope and belief. I want to follow her too.

“I don’t want you to be dead. I want to believe that you’re somewhere out there, safe and free. I want to believe in happy endings, and forgiveness, and…well, social justice, of course, and equality, and…the triumph of good over evil. Of life over death.”

But death hangs over me too, now, in nightmares and muscle memory, in the echoes of Malfoy Manor. It sounds trite when it say it, tastes like ash, and I know he would scoff at my stupidity.

“Harry shouldn’t have left this to me. I never asked to be your executor. I never wanted it. I hope you know that, wherever you are.”

His heavy traveling cloak is folded, but I shake it out. There’s a flask in one pocket, finely wrought Goblin silver, and when I unscrew the lid the smell of firewhiskey is pungent.

“I could pack up your trunks, stop cataloging for tonight. I could put you to rest, head up to the common room, and drink whatever potion Ginny’s spiked the punch with. I could be one of them again.”

I take a sip of his whiskey, just a tiny one. It feels like fire in my sinuses as soon as it hits my tongue.

“Except that I’m not. I’m neither here nor there, neither student nor adult.”

The other pocket holds a passport and a money clip. It’s a Muggle passport, and the clip holds four hundred pounds. It’s not much of a plan but it was his. There are stamps in his passport. He didn’t get them at the Ministry Portkey Authority, I realize.

“You were the same, I think. I think. Always in-between, never quite fitting in.”

This is madness. He isn’t here; he can’t hear me. He wouldn’t want to listen if he could.

“What do I really know, Professor? All I know is that I want to make a difference.”

 

**October 31, 2012**

“Dammit Draco, I won’t let Percy Weasley dictate my collection!” I’m spitting now, I realize, so angry that my magic is crackling and sparkling along the lengths of my fingers.

Luna is blocking the door, wide-eyed and daffy but I know I won’t get past whatever spell she’s concocting. Neville’s standing behind her, a gentle but immovable force.

“Hermione, you’ve got to calm down. The Headmistress – “

“Is never going to wake up! Can’t you see – we can’t fix this. If they take control now, they’ll never let go!”

Draco is the only one who possibly understands. I can see that now. Neville and Luna are just here to make sure I don’t do any harm to myself. They don’t really believe that the Ministry is going to do any damage, that Hogwarts being run by a political organization is going to affect the curriculum. Draco is my only ally.

“They’re calling it safety but it’s going to end up as tyranny! It’s already there!”

“Granger –“

He trails off as the door opens.

It’s dark here in the garden of my grandmother’s house, but only a few people can find or enter this room right now. Harry is the most likely – I know that Neville probably sent a patronus before the three of them followed me.

My heart skips a beat. Surely Harry will understand. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out of it, because the man who steps through the door isn’t Harry.

I don’t believe my eyes. He looks happy, and healthy, and fifteen years older but the lines aren’t etched any deeper. His hair is shorter, and he’s got a close-trimmed beard. His robes aren’t black, but steel gray, and he’s almost – not handsome perhaps, but –

Draco thumps to the floor in a faint, Neville scoots back about five paces, and Luna beams and flaps her hands and says, “Welcome back, Headmaster!”

Severus Snape looks at each of us in turn. “Longbottom, Lovegood. Granger.” Does he linger? Does he stare at me at a beat too long? Do I just imagine it? He’s past me now, to Draco, who is lying in a heap. “Fucking pathetic, Malfoy.”

I don’t believe my eyes. And yet I’ve always believed that he was alive, that he was somewhere out - there. Here. He’s here.

His gaze flicks back to me.

“Granger.” His voice is low, and authoritative. I sharpen instantly, like muscle memory. “I’ll need your help to heal Minerva.”

I don’t even know what’s happening, but I’ll follow him anywhere. Out of the Room of Requirement, to the ends of the earth.

 

**October 31, 1998**

Despite all the evidence, I believe that this will come out right. I have to or the loneliness will break me. I didn’t realize what I had there, surrounded by friends and my work and all the things I loved. This isn’t a refuge but a prison. I’m trapped here with him.

He’s in the next room, and he doesn’t remember all the things he told me. He’s thin and pale; younger but a thousand times more careworn. Not totally silent, and he’s eating now, a bit, but he’s not…

Not mine.

No one, in my entire life, has ever made feel the way he did.

I wanted him so bad. It was a pain, an itch. I couldn’t stand to be around him and yet all I wanted was to curl up inside him.

They’re not the same person, are they?

I try to imagine the hands of the pale wraith in the room next door trailing over my body, tacking my nipples between his teeth as his fingers hook into me and his thumb brushes just – ah, there…

He loved me. And I have to believe that he will again, even if right now it seems impossible.

 

**October 31, 2012**

He’s gone. John didn’t seem terribly bothered or worried by it at dinner, even though we’ve told him again and again that his dad will be gone until the end of the school year.

Somewhere else, I’m seeing him again for the first time in ages. I’d been yelling about Percy when he walked in.

My body flushes when I think about it, and I hug the pillow next me tighter to my chest. I still remember the way my body sang that night, the way I awoke to him for the first time.

It’s only been six hours since he left, but they drag by. Tomorrow’s a school day for John, and I have a meeting in London with the merchandisers, so I’d best get some sleep.

The bed just seems so empty without him here.


	3. November 5

**November 5, 1998**

“You’ll catch your death out here, girl,” she says from the doorway. It’s a crisp night, cloudless and moonless and black. It’s an hour past curfew, but I live in staff quarters instead of the tower. It’s easier that way, everyone says. The younger years were all so intimidated by me.

“Sorry, Headmistress.” I’m careful to address her by the honorific, although sometime during the summer – about the time she called Harry and I up to her office and plied us both with whisky and tales of the Order in its heyday – I began thinking of her as Minerva.

“It’s Minerva,” she answers, as if she’s read my thoughts. “I can’t sleep either. Will you come up for some tea?”

I nod, and I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do. Somewhere in the distance, I can swear I hear fireworks or thunder. The tartan ribbon that’s trailing off her hat bobs, and I think maybe she’s heard it too.

“It’s Bonfire Night,” I whisper. “He tried to blow up the government, tried to start a revolution against an unjust –“

“Ministry,” she interjects, completing my analogy, and I realize she’s come out here wandering for the same reason I have. She’s thinking about Fawkes, and Dumbledore – the past.

“You must miss him terribly,” I say, which is a stupid thing, but all I can think of because my own feelings toward Dumbledore are so ambivalent.

“Severus? Yes.”

That’s not what I meant at all, but it’s more than I asked for.

“He’d been raised to believe in revolution – a Worker’s Revolution, but a bloody one all the same. Riddle just seemed like another Marx to him, someone who was going to right a corrupt system, and he didn’t realize at first that it wasn’t the same thing at all. I knew him, you see, and yet...”

She takes a deep breath, and I realize she’s trying not to cry. The Headmistress. My Head of House. The strongest woman I know. I’m horrified; what can I possibly say? I’m still a child. I don’t have any answers.

She sighs. “And I knew Albus as well.”

That’s the difference between us. Snape and Dumbledore were her colleagues, friends. I’ll never understand quite what she feels right now.

“Now about that cup of tea, dear,” she says, and I watch as her tears dry and her spine stiffens. She’s still the strongest woman I know. I’m in awe of her – so much that if she wants to be friends, it’s not in my power to refuse her.

 

**November 5, 2012**

“Longbottom said I might find you out here.”

My synapses fire and explode at the sound of his voice. I’ve been watching him this last week, watching as he sent Percy and the press packing with a single glare and managed to charm his way into the Headmaster’s office. He’s had conferences with Kingsley and Harry and conferences with the Heads of House. I’ve heard about all of it second-hand. My meeting with him is not until Tuesday and the library is the least of his concerns right now.

“You were looking for me?” I’m surprised, and wary. Surely I haven’t made a fool of myself. Surely he hasn’t noticed –

“I was.” He’s standing next to me at the railing now, where Minerva would be standing if she weren’t so ill, with a strange moue that almost looks like a smile. For a moment, I imagine I read things like acceptance and understanding and forgiveness in his eyes, but then I look away because I don’t want him to read my expression or slip into my mind and know.

“I’d like to go over your research notes on Minerva’s illness.”

I’m preparing a thousand things I should say instead of the ones I want to, the proper, appropriate things. Sorry. Thank you. Glad to see you again. Glad to know you’re well. Then I realize what he’s just said. “What?”

The ghost of a smile deepens, and I swear it’s almost a smirk. He’s just near enough that I can smell him, cloves and parchment and something green and fresh and full of life. I’m looking at him now, watching him, and he’s studying me out of the corner of his eye. This can’t be the same man. All of the hard edges, the bitterness, the anger…it’s gone.

It’s not just the passing of time. Only love can work a transformation this profound.

“Come now, you must have notes. There may be something useful in them.”

It takes me a moment to realize how deep into the core of me he’s flayed. I know that I should laugh, but it burns, it hurts; if he looked that deep and still didn’t like me, it’s a much more personal insult. “Of course, I’ll send them up.”

“Very good. And in return, I will answer one of your myriad burning questions.”

I feel it again, that strange weight in my stomach when he cuts too near the bone, as if he really does know me. I consider all the things I could ask, things about the past. How he survived, where he’s been, why he came back now.

Instead, I ask the hardest one, the one that asks him to predict the future. “How long do you intend to stay?”

He moves a fraction closer to me, rests his hands on the rail. He’s twenty years my senior, but somehow it seems like time stood still for him. He looks as young or as old as he did the last time I saw him, except now he looks…happier.

I remember being seventeen, staring at him outside his office. The way his eyes burned into me, pleading, beseeching me to stay there. There where – in retrospect – I was safe.

He feels like safety, like he’s always done, even when that safety was a cold shelter.

He catches my eye, turns and looks at me. “As long as I’m needed.”

Once, I would’ve understood those words from that man as an accusation. They would have been flung (never toward me, I wasn’t important enough to merit them) with bitterness or grief.

Now? They sound like a promise. “That long, then?”

His eyes are glittering in the darkness with something possessive and strange. My body responds to it as if it’s desire and my breath catches in my throat.

He lowers his voice so that it slides through the air like a charm. “Indeed, Miss Granger.”

I don’t want to ruin this amiable mood he’s in, but the name grates. That’s what Hagrid still calls me, and Dumbledore’s portrait. “I’m not Miss Granger anymore.”

“Madam Granger, then. It takes some getting used to,” he explains, and he looks almost…apologetic. I immediately regret my prickliness. I liked the way he’d said Miss Granger better; it was gentle, almost with a certain relish.

“How about Hermione? There aren’t any students about.”

He raises an eyebrow, bends his head even closer, and my knees almost buckle. “Always assume the children are where they’re not meant to be, Hermione.”

My eyes are increasingly drawn to his lips, which are full and agile. Always in motion when he is speaking and thinking, even when his jaw is clenched. I wonder if they taste like cloves and my stomach rolls.

“Hermione?” It’s a plaintive call, echoing from one of the halls beyond the courtyard. Harry.

Severus – Headmaster Snape – looks almost disappointed for a moment. His mouth tightens, but then he steps forward, slowly, and circles around me with his hands on my elbows. Hovering so near that I feel his breath on my skin, he whispers “good night” before stalking off into the darkness.

As soon as he’s gone, I become aware of it. The hitch in my breath, the flush on my skin, the swelling.

It’s attraction, this thing I’m feeling. Attraction to…Snape.

Harry calls my name again, louder and closer. I rub my knees together, trying to diffuse a little of the tension, and then straighten my shoulders.

“I’m here,” I call. I’m here.

Wherever the hell this is.

 

**November 5, 1998**

“Severus?” I pant his name, although I’ve only run from my bedroom. He’s thrashing in his bed, sweating and spastic, gripped by some terrible dream. Memory. His jaw clenches and his face twists in a grimace of pain so sharp I want to throw myself onto him and protect him. He cries out again, something strange and indecipherable. I don’t know what he’s trying to say or what he’s seeing behind his eyes but I can’t stand this, can’t bear to watch him suffer. Before I know what I’m doing I’ve crossed the room and pressed my chest against his, trapping his arms with my sternum while I grab his face between my hands. “It’s all right. You’re all right.”

I feel him still beneath me, and I hold my breath. I’ve calmed his terror, but it’s going to be replaced by anger and directed at me. I’ve crossed the line.

And I did this to him in the first place, mentioned Fawkes when I brought him his dinner. He hasn’t ever cried out like this. Not since he became…well.

He doesn’t lash out. He freezes. The moment ends, and his breath begins again, deep and even. He tugs his arms out from under me but before I can shift my weight I feel the moisture on my hands, on his jaw, and I look up. It’s night, and dark, but there’s enough moonlight to discern the tears that are coursing down his thin cheeks, and he’s the man I love and he’s crying and I can’t fix it –

And instead of pushing me away with his arms he wraps them around me, so tight that I can barely breathe and I bury my head on his shoulder. My calves start to burn and I shift so that I’m lying beside him. His tears have slowed. He hasn’t opened his eyes or said a word, but it doesn’t matter.

This is love too, I think; this pain, this heartbreak, this helplessness. This guilt and remorse.

 

**November 5, 2012**

“But Mum,” he pleads. “I’m hungry.”

John is on a sugar high right now because I let him have a soda and some pies during the fireworks. If Severus were here, he’d know just what to say to quiet his spirits, but everything I do seems to key him up even more. It’s 5th November and the crowds in Yeovil were obnoxious. I’ve never been able to stand them, but it’s easier with him around. Everything is easier when he’s around. It’s only been six days, but we haven’t been away from each other this long in fifteen years.

“No biscuits, John. An apple, if you must – but then go to bed.”

He pauses for a moment, debating whether or not to try my limits. But then he throws his arms around my neck and kisses my cheek. He straightens up and screws his face up in concentration and a moment later an apple rolls through the door and stops in front of him. He flashes me a wicked grin, so much like his dad. “John –“

“Yeah, yeah. No foolish spells. Thanks mum!”

He’s out my door – hopefully to bed, but probably only to bury himself under the covers and read. There’s only so much I can do with him. Apples don’t fall very far from trees. I have only myself to blame, but he’s a sweet boy; he’ll thrive at Hogwarts.

I breathe deeply, imagining the smell of the library, the hall during a feast, the staff room at Christmastime when Minerva always kept warm cider and gingerbread on the mantle.

Soon.

I undress, put on warm pyjamas, crawl under the thick down comforter on our bed. Once, a long time ago, we huddled here against the dark, against the terror, against the loneliness. It seems like so many years ago and just a moment.

There’s a crack and a pop and he’s here, leaning over me. He’s wearing his teaching robes, and I haven’t seen these on him since I left Hogwarts and my God it all comes rushing back. How much he keyed me up, so that I can barely remember how I felt or who I was or what I did. He looks almost feral.

“I have just spent the past six days being tormented and teased by you, Granger,” he growls, and his pants are unbuttoned and he’s pulling my bottoms down to my ankles and tossing them aside. It’s a good thing I’m ready because he isn’t gentle as he spreads my legs and collapses on top of me.

He touches me with love, longing, desire. Affection and kindness. We make love, but this fire, this passion – I haven’t felt it rolling off him like this for years. I cling to him, let him do as he pleases as he thrusts into me and bites at my ear, groaning, and my God it’s exquisite. He’s up on his palms now, watching my face as he pounds into me, over and over. “I can smell it on you”, he pants, “your desire. I know it’s primal, that I can’t just shove you up against the wall and take you but I want to so bad that I’m running around the castle with a constant erection and tossing off in the Headmaster’s office while imagining you spread over that desk. Do I do that? Do you end up on top of my desk?”

Yes. I say yes, but it’s buried in a thousand other yeses to a thousand other questions.

“If I haven’t done it yet, I will,” he growls, rolling his hips against mine, rocking against me until – just there – just there –

In the aftermath, he kisses my cheek and runs his fingers through my curls before buttoning up his trousers and smoothing his robes. “How’s John?”

“Fine,” I answer, pouting a little. He’s leaving in a few moments, I know. “We missed you at the fireworks.”

“I miss you too,” he says softly, bending down to kiss my cheek again, but when he straightens he looks smug and impish. “Although getting to experience this through my eyes is intriguing.”

It reminds me of the look on his face…I whip the pillow out from behind my head and throw it at him, but he catches it, grinning. “You bastard! You’re having your cake and eating it too!”

I’m lonely here without him. Meanwhile he’s basking in the adoration and melodrama and clandestine flirtations with a much younger woman who’s hanging on every word. All this time, I thought he’d been as frustrated as I had, not popping back to East Coker for a shag.

“Might as well get used to Slytherin tactics. He’ll be one,” he waves his head vaguely toward the back of the house, toward John’s room.

I hold up two fingers and stick my tongue out. “He’ll be a Gryffindor.”

“Over my dead body, dear,” and then he tosses the pillow back at me. Just before he pops away again, he looks back. “By the way, your friends are still tossers.”


	4. December 12

**December 12, 1998**

“Budge over, kids,” George says, pushing at Harry and I until there’s enough space for him to climb in between us. He’s holding a bucket of candy and shovels a handful into his mouth as Ginny leans over Harry’s lap to raid it as well.

“Where’s Ange?” Ginny asks, chewing with her mouth open.

“Had to work,” he masticates. “But Hermione’ll be my date, won’t you old girl?”

Harry shakes his head. It’s not subtle at all – I notice it long before either George or Ginny, who are mostly oblivious. Harry’s been tending to me since he got here like I’m some doddering old invalid, as if Ron’s decision to go off to some Cannons match with some blokes from the Auror division instead of coming to Hogwarts might be the final straw that breaks my (obviously fragile) emotional stability.

Couldn’t care less, actually. Makes it all easier when he’s not here, or would if they’d stop acting like it was the end of the world.

George finally notices, throws an arm around me and pulls me close, resting his chin on my head.

“Won’t be much of a match,” Ginny warns around bites of many-flavored beans. “Slytherin’s shite this season. Think old Horry might’ve gone completely round the bend.”

Never mind that half the students are now orphans or as good as, never mind that Professor Slughorn’s ‘leadership’ has consisted of half-baked schemes to connect the “well-connected” (by which he now means of obscure parentage and therefore not tainted by association) students to forgiving souls in insignificant places. Last week he found Odin Rowle pinned in the East Corridor by two fourth-year Hufflepuffs and Fergus McLaggen. They were attempting to draw a Dark Mark on his forehead with a sharpie, and Slughorn apologized to them – the perpetrators! Minerva had to step in and assign detention. It’s ridiculous.

The whistle blows, and Hufflepuff erupts into cheers. It’s joined by a few half-hearted shouts from Slytherin’s student section, and I glance over at their box. Two women sit wrapped in thick wool against the cold. Narcissa Malfoy and...Andromeda.

“Harry,” I say, leaning over George. I have to call his name a second time to draw his attention away from the match. “Harry, did you realize Madam Malfoy’s here?”

“What?” He shouts it, and I don’t think the cheering is really that loud. I think he’s deliberately misunderstanding me, so I point to Slytherin’s tower. After a moment, his eyes narrow. He glances at me, and then nods.

I’m not sure he understood me, but after a few minutes he gets up and leaves, and the next time I look at their stands he’s sitting on the bench above Narcissa and Andromeda, leaning down between them and pointing to the quaffle, no doubt providing commentary on the match.

George elbows me, and when I turn back to him I realize he’s seen them too. He grins. I have an ally in George – he’s the most forgiving, most accepting of his siblings.

He rolls his eyes when I reach into my bag and pull out a book, so I stick out my tongue before I flip to my place and begin to read Trithemius’s third treatise on Arithmancy.

 

**December 12, 2012**

“A word, Madam Granger,” he growls, brushing past me. A handful of professors and Hagrid are still sitting in their seats, hoping to pin him down, but only Binns manages to beat him out of the staffroom. I’m standing with my parchments tucked into my valise, packed and ready to head back to the library, but instead I trail after him. He doesn’t wait for me, and I’m almost jogging when I reach the final flight of stairs. I wonder if I imagined his invitation as I weave my way through the castle, but then I turn the corner into the corridor leading to the Headmaster’s staircase and he’s there, casually leaning against the wall, not even the faintest hint of sweat on his brow even though my cheeks are red and I’m out of breath.

I slant my eyes at him and huff. “You floo’d here, didn’t you? Or flew?”

He snorts, but his eyes are burning with amusement as he turns toward the tower and I follow. “Hardly. I merely took advantage of a corridor, like a sensible person would.”

“One can be sensible but not have your privileges, Headmaster.” I’m not certain how sarcasm will go down with him, but if I had any doubts the crinkles at the corners of his eyes put them to rest. I’ve made him smile, and the victory goes straight to my head, makes me bolder than I ought to be. “A gentleman would’ve shown me the shortcut, not made me run up three flights of stairs.”

“Since you pant so fetchingly, allow me to congratulate myself on not being a gentleman.” He taps his knuckles twice on the gargoyle and the stairs shift into view, and he’s casual and easy as he motions me up the stairs ahead of him.

I have never been so attracted to someone in my entire life, nor so aware of someone’s eyes on my hips as I mount a set of steps. I’ve never felt quite so tempted to turn around and throw myself at someone, and the intensity of my body’s reaction paradoxically serves to quell it. It’s not that I don’t trust him; it’s that I don’t trust myself. Hermione Granger is awkward and shy with attractive men. Hermione Granger does not fantasize about trysts in front of Phineas Nigellus Black with her boss. These seem like foundational truths, even though they’re now resting on sand, and I should cling to them as long as I can.

He’s respectful and relatively kind but impatient with me in public, and everyone else remarks with something like fond exasperation that Snape, though much improved, is still undeniably Snape.

But then he gets me alone and a completely different side of him appears, one that’s flirtatious and strangely familiar…as if he knows buttons to push that I didn’t even know existed.

I understand intellectually that he was (is?) a spy, but still. I can’t reconcile it, and that frustrates me. By the time his office door swings shut behind us and he gets a look at my face, I’m fairly peeved off. It shows.

His lips purse, and he rubs a knuckle against his philtrum. “I…I apologize.” The words don’t seem to come easy to him, but they’re not said grudgingly. “That was inappropriate.”

But not unwelcome, I want to say. I don’t. He looks genuinely chastened, and I hope my answering smile is friendly and kind.

“I read all of your notes, Madam Granger. I’ve tested a few of your theories.”

There is some sort of understanding here, and it isn’t just – or even mostly – physical. I know what he’s not saying. “None of it helped, did it?”

“It helped rule out several possibilities. There aren’t any charms affecting her. Her magic is still strong, and it’s active. And yet…the wounded surgeon plies the steel.”

The last sounds like he’s quoting something, but I don’t recognize it. I can tell he’s disappointed by my lack of response because he gives out a short sigh as I shake my head. “If anyone can help her, sir, you can.”

“It seems not.” His words are very harsh, but his voice is soft. “The castle still interacts with her, but I cannot. So it is in Hogwarts that we must all put our hope of righting this.”

“Oh! Ooooooh.” I sound like an idiot, but it’s not what I was expecting, least of all from him. It sounds like the treacle Dumbledore fed us when he wanted something, but I’ve never known Severus Snape to be florid when blunt could do. It **sounds** like bullshit, but I’m not sure it is. Not completely.

“I have a new research project for you, if you’ve time.” There’s a glint in his eye, and he waits for me to nod enthusiastically before he continues, “I need you to go back through all of the Hogwarts: A History recensions and note any instances of castle magic that didn’t make it into the more recent editions.”

It’s literally the project of all my wildest intellectual fantasies, offered by the man who has featured in all of my recent baser ones.

There has to be a catch.

It’s all too good to be true.

 

**December 12, 1998**

“You need to remove the lavender,” he says before disappearing back into his bedroom with his coffee.

The dance is so much slower now, but I’m beginning to find the rhythm. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it earlier, but it wasn’t difficult to get through to him once I began working. His need to provide commentary and instruction (I’m being generous – his need to prove himself superior and catalog my deficiencies) has drawn him out of his hidey hole.

Our fake identification holds up well enough, but neither of us have any muggle credentials or references and we have to eat somehow. Dumbledore’s money isn’t going to last forever.

I knock on the door, and there’s a grunt from the other side which I choose to take as permission to speak. I peek my head in. “I have questions about what I should look for in the rosemary.”

“You passed your potions NEWT, didn’t you?” He’s dismissive, cracking open his book and propping his feet on the bed as if I’m not here.

“Under Horace,” I explain. He rolls his eyes and there’s a trace of a grin.

“Admitting your deficiencies? Pity we can’t inform the Prophet without blowing our cover.”

He’s impossible. He’s fucking impossible. “I’m admitting I have gaps in my education, you fucking git, but we still have to eat!”

The book drops. His hand goes to his wand and there’s a dangerous glint in his eyes. “Insult me again, Granger.”

I leave. Instinct takes me as far as the kitchen where I slide into one of the chairs and bury my head in my hands. I taste saline at the corners of my lips from the tears that have started to fall unchecked, and I consider bucking up and biting them back.

But by God, I’m alone here, and even though I was scared and I knew it would be hard and I knew what I was risking I never imagined feeling this lonely. I thought I’d been lonely between the war and teaching, but even then I’d been at Hogwarts surrounded by friends.

Did I really think time has no effect on us? The stories we live, the memories we make, those are what make us who we are – the choices. The parts of us we allow to flourish, and the ones we attempt to suppress.

I forgot why Harry hated him, why Neville was terrified of him, why Minerva could’ve ever thought the worst of him. Maybe we all did; maybe we chose to remember the best and forget the worst, because isn’t that the true nature of friendship? We fought for him, fought to see him recognized and forgiven and acknowledged, and we buried the hatchets, the tallies, the half-remembered insults. We smoothed over the damage he did to us and the damage life had done to him.

It all seems like a dream now, that other life. Not even a memory, but a fantasy, where I believed in impossible things.

Something warm and soft falls onto my arm, and I brush away the tears enough to see that it’s a flannel. I wipe my face with it before I push the hair out of my eyes and look up at him. He looks…frightened. Sad and skittish. He ducks his head toward the sink, hiding his face behind his stringy hair. His voice is the softest I’ve heard it. “My mum used to cry. When Da – swore I’d never. My temper – I’m sorry.”

A sob catches in my throat at the pain in his voice, at the boy that’s still somewhere in there, but when I realize what he’s said I choke on my tears and it turns into a strangled laugh. “You swore you’d never make anyone cry?”

He turns to me with his eyes flashing, but the anger dissipates instantly and he looks at me, really looks at me. “Women, Granger, Christ. Not students. I thought you claimed to be a teacher.”

I shrug. “Librarian, actually.”

“Well then,” he says, getting up from the table, his apology dispensed with, heading back to hole himself up his bedroom, “you haven’t seen the little blighters at their worst.”

 

**December 12, 2012**

“Thanks for ringing me,” I say again, and fold myself back behind the wheel, shutting the door. Mrs. Epworth is still on the pavement, watching us through the windows, so I smile tightly and wave until she turns her back on us, and then I sigh. John is sulking, his mouth drawn into a thin line and his brow furrowed. “If you do that to your eyebrows they’ll stay that way.”

He rolls his eyes and goes rigid. He’s tapping his thumbs with his index fingers, full of all sorts of things I’m sure he can’t define or express. “Sure, mum.”

“I’m serious. Have you looked at your father lately?”

He lets out something between a giggle and snort, and folds his fingers around his forearms. “Have I lost my iPad?”

I pinch my nose between my fingers, wondering if he’s being deliberately obtuse. I can’t tell. This is the boy who flooded the basement at four by bending the pipes under the sink into shapes, and the boy who at seven informed me that the so-called half-moon was misnamed because the moon is a sphere, and exactly half of it is always facing the sun, and the whole world was terrible at both astronomy and thinking. “John, you can’t go round telling the girls in your class about your wand!”

His mouth curls up, and I can tell he’s suppressing a grin. “She asked me if I had any secrets. I said I had a wand I’m not allowed to show her.”

My own lips are twitching. “And?”

“And Mrs. Epworth said I was being vulgar.” His brow furrows again. “Does she really think magic is gross?”

“Uhm, right” I say, stalling for time. I clear my throat, and wish his father weren’t in Scotland. “She didn’t – it didn’t sound like the kind of wand you were thinking of.”

He looks at me as if I’m stupid before the wires finally connect, and then his eyes go round and his cheeks turn pink. He ducks his head away, but I can see mortification reflected in the window.

“Breaking the Statute of Secrecy is a little more serious than being thought a bit chavvy,” I assure him. “It could be worse.”

“Why can’t we just tell everyone? It’s stupid.”

How do you explain persecution to a child who hasn’t learned it the hard way? “People fear what they don’t understand, and some of them let their fear turn into hate. And they forget that everyone is just different, and it doesn’t really matter if you understand others or not as long as you treat them with kindness and respect.”

They always sound so trite, these answers I give him. Oxfam-special philosophy. He’s not satisfied with them – I wouldn’t be either.

So many things I want to tell him. Have to tell him. “So, you made a mistake. Are you sorry?”

“Yes.”

I’m not sure he really knows what it means yet, remorse. In my experience, you have to learn grief and regret first. You have to learn that choices have consequences, and that those sometimes hurt. It’s easy to impart knowledge to a child, but wisdom is difficult to teach.

It has to be given, and accepted. Like forgiveness. Like love.

“Then we have a free afternoon. Will you indulge me?” I pull out onto the High Street, and glance over at him. He’s smiling a little. “I’m going to tell you a story about…about The Boy Who Lived, who was,” my voice cracks, “my best friend.”

He snorts. “Is this another fairy tale, like the one about the Deathly Hallows?”

I shake my head. I’m glad I’m driving, because I couldn’t have this conversation with him if I had to see his reactions, if I didn’t have a task to focus on. “That’s a tale about death. This is about life – about people who make mistakes and fail, but forgive each other and keep going.”

“Oh. That sounds boring.”

“Your father was a spy and I robbed a bank.”

He’s silent. I don’t dare look at him. Then he whistles, and I dart a glance. He looks smug. “I knew you were secretly cool.”

It’s like whistling into the wind, reasoning with a ten year old.


	5. December 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for any errors in this chapter; this is where the story earns its M rating, and if I edit it too closely I'll chicken out and it will all collect dust on my hard drive another half decade ;-)

**December 25 th, 1998**

Harry and I are sitting on the couch at The Burrow, tucked under a blanket in our new sweaters. I’m trying to let him read the letter I’m holding, but he’s crowding me.

_Dearest Hermione,_

_I wish you a happy Yuletide. I hope that I don’t overstep my professional duties when I say that I’m giving you this because I always wished to have a daughter, a girl who I could see grow to surpass me, and I care for you in that way._

_I know that returning has been difficult for you, and I hope you still feel your decision was a sound one. You have been invaluable to me these past few months, and I hope that no matter where you go after leaving Hogwarts you will always remember that you have friends here._

_Deepest Regards,_

_Minerva McGonagall_

_P.S. I suppose I should tell you that I am withholding a gift left to you by Albus. It may be something of a Trojan Horse – but know you were remembered by him as well._

I finish it long before Harry does, studying the silver thistle cloak-pin in my hand.

I’m so grateful to have a friend in her. I gave her a book, and now I feel a bit bad for not having put more thought into the gift.

Ron leans between us and reads the signature before looking more closely at the pin. “Bloody hell, Hermione, that’s worth a fortune.”

I want to say something equally rude, but then Ron is gone, back with Bill and Ginny, and Harry finishes reading. He looks sad. “I think she’s right. I don’t think you should ask for whatever Professor Dumbledore left you.”

I nod. It’s sad that we’re all thinking the same thing. The gifts Professor Dumbledore gave were not always in the receiver’s best interest.

“Are you happy at Hogwarts?” Harry asks.

“I’m content. I’m finally free to just learn, without worrying about surviving.”

“Yeah, me too. The part about surviving, I mean.”

“No being maudlin at Christmas,” George says, perching on the armrest. I giggle. He’s wearing a St. Nicholas glamour and holding a sack. “Let’s see what St. Nick has in store for you. Have you been naughty or nice?”

“George, Harry and I were raised muggle. This is terribly silly.”

He huffs, and then grins. “The purebloods are eating it up. Dreadfully good for business. Everyone loves Santa Claus.”

I don’t say aloud that I’ve had enough of Jolly Bearded Men for a lifetime or two.

 

**25 th December, 2012**

The gargoyle nods to me as I approach the staircase. It doesn’t ask for a password, which is queer, so at the top of the tower I knock lightly on the door and prepare to leave. It flies open. He’s sitting behind the desk with his feet propped up and a book on his lap, his reading glasses sliding down his nose. He looks over them at me. “Can I help you?”

Why does it always seem like he’s inviting me in but making me do all the work? I wish it weren’t so inviting.

I walk over and set the bag on his desk. “Gifts from Harry and the Weasleys, along with a Happy Christmas. Molly said to give you a hug.”

“Very well, then. Happy Christmas.” His lips quirk up at the corners slightly, and I wonder what he finds amusing. I feel a twinge of disappointment that he didn’t fight me for the hug, or at least question me on it, although I can’t fathom actually embracing him. “Anything else?”

“George said to give that blue one to you at breakfast, so you might want to open it without an audience present. It’s almost certainly harmless, but – “

He plucks the blue package out of the bag and enlarges it before waving his wand over it. His brow furrows. “It’s just a minor hovering charm, probably something juvenile and embarrassing.”

He pulls open the ribbon, leaning back in his chair. I lean closer to see what it is, and some silly little plant flies out of the box. We follow it with our eyes until it stops about three meters up, bobbing merrily. I’m not sure what he’s expecting, but I suppose I was waiting for a silly hat or a “Happy Christmas” written in pink fireworks, not a sprig of mistletoe. I stare at it, knowing that neither of us is moving any further away from each other than we already are until we kiss. Really, this would be less awkward at breakfast, where I could give him a chaste peck to the delight of both staff and students without either of us risking anything. I badly miscalculated by not abetting George’s prank. I wonder briefly if it was designed to booby trap me for turning traitor.

I’m on the other side of the bloody desk, wearing the annual Weasley sweater, this one in a damning shade of green with a bronze “H”. Fleur transfigured all of them by lowering the necklines and reshaping the cut so that they’re provocative and hideous all at once, and therefore (she claims) fashionably absurd. I lean over a little toward him. “It would be easier if you’d meet me halfway.”

“Do you always take the easy way out?” He tosses the box onto the floor and folds his hands behind his head, and I notice he’s careful not to lose any ground by closing the distance between us. I meet his eyes, and there’s both invitation and challenge in them.

I lean forward a bit more, so that I’m resting on my elbows. “You’re really going to make me crawl over the desk?”

His eyes flick over me, and I study him a moment. His nostrils flare, and he shifts a bit in his chair as if he’s unsure he’s made the right decision. I flush, and bite my lip as he drawls, “I’m not going to make you do anything, Hermione. If you want something, ask for it.”

He’s smirking now. He knows he’s got me cornered.

“I can’t hold this position much longer,” I protest, because he’s comfortable and my calves are already burning from the strain, but I realize as soon as I say it that I might as well give in and crawl over the desk for all the mercy he’ll show.

“Is there a different one you’d prefer?” He’s opening smiling, and I swell, my body and my emotions expanding until suddenly I just don’t care how foolish I look, and even though it’s absurd it’s still just a joke between us, so I push myself up onto my hands and knees on top of the desk.

“I’m only putting up with this because you’re a hero.”

He throws his head back and laughs and it’s a beautiful sound. And he’s laughing because he knows it’s absurd and that we’re none of us heroes and then he leans forward suddenly and moves his chair toward me. His eyes are embers, his mouth a soft s-curve of expectation and trepidation. He slides his fingers into my hair.

He’s gentle when my mouth meets his, and my lips are trembling. The kiss is cautious, light, not demanding or possessive, but he bites at his bottom lip and I want to sooth it so I open my mouth slightly, against his, and wet my lips. He groans, and then his tongue is pushing my mouth open and he’s nipping and biting and sucking at my lips. It’s as if he knows instinctively how to evoke my desire, how to stoke the firebox until my blood is boiling in my veins. When he pulls away, my body tells me to follow, but I don’t want to fall off the desk onto his lap.

He looks smug. That’s the only word for it. His gaze lingers on my chest for a moment before he turns away and pulls the drinks cabinet closer. “Be sure to tell Mr. Weasley that you were on your hands and knees on top of my desk during the culmination of his little prank.”

I smile. There’s a momentary pang of disappointment that the moment is over, that he so effectively aroused my desire without following through on the myriad promises that lurked in his caresses. It’s followed by elation, which I can’t define or explain, but it’s the same euphoria that accompanies battle. I realize we have the sort of friendship that comes from being co-conspirators. It’s not just attraction; it transcends it. George meant to embarrass him; thought I’d be game.

He leans forward and my breath catches in my throat. His eyes are intense, deep, focused. His eyelashes are terribly long, and there are flecks of espresso at the outer edges of his black irises. There are faint lines around his eyes that I don’t remember him having.

Laugh lines.

“You described what’s plaguing Minerva as a virus,” he says. He places his palms face down on the desk. “When I returned, the castle healed, but the headmistress is still unresponsive.”

I nod as my brain re-engages and I shove aside more personal reflections. “It spread like a virus, like it was replicating. Minerva fell ill and then parts of the castle began closing off, becoming unresponsive.”

“If we consider my presence treatment, it didn’t respond as a virus would,” he replies. He steeples his fingers in front of his chin. “But if we think of it rather as an autoimmune response –“

“You mean like AIDS?”

He shakes his head. “That’s a response to a virus. A better analogy would be multiple sclerosis. The castle – the office of Head – is attacking itself, attacking the nervous system.”

I don’t know enough about autoimmune diseases. My grasp of muggle science is weak. I appreciate it, but I haven’t studied it enough to really understand it. Still, I think I understand what he’s implying. I nod. “That isn’t the underlying problem. We still don’t understand where it’s coming from, whether it’s a virus or an autoimmune response.”

“It isn’t an outside job.”

I stare at him blankly. “What?”

“The castle is trying to fix something – it thinks something’s foreign, wrong, and it’s shutting it down.”

Oh. Of course. Of course. How could I not have seen it? “You think it wanted you back as Headmaster? That Hogwarts was trying to get our attention?”

He shakes his head. “Easy. You’re ten steps ahead. I was only suggesting that we reframe it as an autoimmune disease and see if that leads us to any new theories.”

Damn him! He’s got a point; this has always been my weakness. Jumping to conclusions; not being willing to experiment and prove. He’s criticized me for it in the past.

“All right,” I allow. “I’ll think about it.”

He nods, and a smirk ghosts his lips. He flicks open one of the drawers and reaches inside. “I found this in her things, addressed to you.”

He sets a box on the table. It’s wrapped in brown paper, non-descript. He already gave me a gift, though, at the staff party – a muggle book, a collection of T.S. Eliot’s poetry. It was a thoughtful, insightful gift, but the one I’d given him, which he’d promised to open in private, had been his Order of Merlin medal, suspended on green and silver silk. Is this a response to it?

I reach out and drag the parcel across the desk. There’s a note slipped under the cord which looks as if it’s been read a thousand times and refolded, so much that the paper is soft and oiled. I pull it out and dare a glance at Severus, who is watching me with a carefully neutral expression.

_Confidential. Deliver to Hermione Granger._

“Dumbledore,” I whisper. Aloud.

“So it seems,” he replies.

I glance over at the frame where he’s supposed to be, but it is – per usual – empty. I nod at Phineas Nigellus, who is watching us intently, and he pretends to study the clock behind me. Severus didn’t have a portrait – surely I wasn’t the only one to notice it never appeared?

My head is swimming; I need time to think. “Minerva told me about this,” I say, babbling, “but Harry and I didn’t think I should accept it.”

His brow furrows. “Why not?”

I stare at the man in front of me, and all the variations of him merge together. The sweet fragile boy in the penseive. The teacher who was so damaged he couldn’t allow himself the luxury of empathy. The man before me, who seems at peace with the world in all its death and glory. “Dumbledore didn’t always have our best interests at heart.”

There’s nothing but silence as he considers this, but then he shakes his head. “If anyone has the wisdom to assess the ramifications, it’s you.”

I don’t smile; his faith in me brings no pleasure.

Instead, I feel the weight of maturity settling over me, the responsibility of being expected to demonstrate wisdom rather than knowledge. Knowledge is easy; wisdom takes courage.

He’s never told me where he’s been all this time, and Kingsley won’t even tell Harry. Says it’s classified. Do I seem as changed to him as he does to me with the passage of time? I don’t ask the questions; they’re his to give, not mine to take.

The gifts he’s given me are more precious than the box I hold in my hands, whatever it is. It’s more precious than information, than answers, than understanding.

Respect. Autonomy. Prerogative.

 

**December 25, 1998**  

A breeze winds through the air and I burrow tighter under the blanket. I could put up a charm, but this is soothing somehow. I haven’t done it for a long time, and I’d forgotten what a cool winter breeze felt like against my cheeks, playing softly with my hair as I gaze up at Orion’s sword and follow it towards the moon. It’s a perfect half-moon, like a slice of lemon. Sirius. The dark side. Orion.

It’s not snowing, but I feel cold, and with a last look at the sky I scoot backward and out of the wind, laying my head down and closing my eyes. The day was a disaster from start to finish. I thought a nice meal might coax him from his room, encourage him to be civil, but instead I burned the goose so badly the Aga caught fire and he came out of his room all right – took one look at the smoke curling about me as I coughed in front of the stove and then burst out laughing, called me an idiot girl, banished the smoke and the flames, and slammed the door to his bedroom in my face.

Happy Christmas indeed.

I’m so lonely. Lonely for the Severus I knew last year, yes, and the way my stomach flipped over and my skin pricked when he was close to me, for his warm laugh and his eyes that were like burning coke. But not…

That had been nice, but even then it wouldn’t have been enough. Not without Harry and Ginny and the rest of the Weasleys, without the castle.

I didn’t realize how much I had. I wasn’t properly grateful for it, certainly, until I lost it.

A best friend. A hand in the darkness, a voice. Someone to hold onto when the world is spinning away underneath you; I don’t have that now. Harry is an eternity away, unreachable.

“Granger, what the fuck are you doing?”

I roll over. His face is only a couple of feet above mine because he’s crouching on his toes, and his eyes widen and he stiffens but he doesn’t move away. I’m looking up at him, and this is really not an attractive angle at which to view him, and he doesn’t look anything but annoyed, as if I forced him to come out here and check on me, but the air feels a thousand times warmer just because he’s here.

I smile, which disarms him even more, and his adam’s apple flares as he swallows. And suddenly I see it flash through him, the flight response, and I realize he really is a truly courageous man because he is sensitive, and perhaps a bit of a coward at the core, but it doesn’t rule him. His will is stronger than his spine.

His love is stronger than his curiosity; stronger even than his self-hatred.

“It reminds me of…home,” I whisper. He looks around at my surroundings and then blanches, and swallows again. His eyes close briefly as he stands, bent at the waist, and steps over me. He heads for the corner and then sits, folding his legs and resting his elbows on his knees. I feel too vulnerable lying on the floor with him here, so I push myself up and cross my legs, brushing my hair back behind my ears.

“Please tell me you didn’t make a tradition of this,” he says. It takes me a moment to realize what he’s implying, and I laugh.

“Fuck no. Haven’t been in it since…fifteen years, for me.” I gesture with my hand, a little circle to encompass the space between us. The distance. How could I forget how I felt in the immediate aftermath, the listless monotony of grief and accountings and peace? It was like coming up from the deep more than coming in from the cold, and we were nauseous and confused more than relieved and at rest. “I forget that it’s still so recent for you.”

He snorts. “Typical. Everybody makes decisions without considering the consequences.”

I suppose it’s empathy, the remembrance of that first Christmas when the thought that Dumbledore had left me something set me cold, sent shivers of trepidation up my spine, but I’m not angry that he’s just lashed out at me again. It’s unfair, sure, but it’s understandable. So I’m quiet and cautious when I say, “You did give it to me.”

He turns his face away. I can tell that he doesn’t believe me, or doesn’t want to. I don’t know what to say, but eventually I ask, “Is there any part of you that doesn’t wish I’d left you there?”

I know there is, of course, because he could have really stopped eating instead of just feigning hunger strikes, and if that failed he could have turned his wand on himself or turned on the gas or drowned himself in the bathtub, I mean God there are thousands of ways to kill yourself if you’re determined to actually go through with it. I suppose I just want him to admit it.

He’s silent for a long time, his head turned so that his hair covers his face. The quiet extends so long that I wonder if he’s fallen asleep with his chin against his chest.

“Severus?”

“I came out because the neighbors are going to think you’re mad. Who puts up a tent and sleeps in it on Christmas night? But I guess given long enough even this can seem like a sort of home.”

My heart turns over in my chest, tears pooling at the corners of my eyes. I blink quickly, wondering if I should tell him the truth, and then I decide that if I can’t even give him that I’ve no business being here at all. “It felt like home because Harry was there.”

Again silence. I begin to berate myself internally; how could I have been so stupid, so bloody insensitive, as to throw my friendship with Harry in his face?

“I’m sorry,” he says at last, just as I’m about to apologize to him.

“Sorry, what?” Why would he apologize to me?

He waves his hand in a circular motion as if he’s stirring an invisible cauldron. It’s a gesture I’ve seen before, and I recognize it as impatience that he’s being forced to elaborate. “That he married the Weasley chit instead of –“

He rolls his wrist a little faster instead of completing his sentence. It takes me a while to get what he’s trying to say because the implications are so absurd, but then all of a sudden I understand him and I burst out into peals of laughter. I haven’t laughed, really laughed, in months, and it feels so good that I can’t – don’t want to – stop.

He looks so confused by my response, so dismayed, that I worry he’s going to be angry if he interprets himself as having been made a fool, but I have to explain why I’m laughing somehow, so the truth – all of it, in all its pathetic detail – comes rushing out. “It was Ron I fancied myself in love with – Harry is, will always be, my best friend. But Ron – “

My voice cracks. Good god, are we going to revisit this now? It’s so long buried, such a subtle scar, that I can’t believe it can still be picked raw. And now I’ve gotten his attention, and Severus is staring at me with a look of astonishment and dismay. “I wanted so badly for him to love me the way I was.”

I think of Ron, determined to treat me as a sister even now, casually brushing aside anything to do with me which doesn’t interest him, determined not to be left out. He was always so scared that he was going to be shoved out of the triangle, that Harry and I would turn our backs on him. “In the end, I got my wish. We ended up together, and I went to work for the Ministry and started planning out our perfect wedding and our perfect children and our perfect life together. Perfection – that was the goal, so I had a project, and I need projects. But reading, he hated that, and he wanted to talk all the time, not about anything significant, just stuff he’d read in the Prophet. Alone, without Harry there to bridge to us, we rubbed each other wrong just as we’d always done. It was ridiculous, and even now I can’t tell why I loved him or why I still do except that he’s Ron, and I wanted a family –“

I have to stop. This is fucking awful. I’m unburdening myself to Snape in way I’ve never done with anybody. I didn’t even know these things about myself – they were there, simmering under the surface, but I’d never reached down to look at them. I was above the boil, above the –

“Severus, can you cast a Legilimens with that wand?”

Well. Now I can say I’ve shocked Severus Snape speechless. It’s a bit of a heady feeling.

“Pardon,” he finally manages, and it’s not even phrased as a question. It’s more of a reflexive exclamation.

“I think I’ve got a talent for Occlumency! I just realized there’s this lava, like – like Mount Doom, and everything I don’t want to know I bury,” and he’s thrown his head back and he’s laughing but it’s not that cold mocking laugh I heard from him this morning, it’s warm and full of appreciation and delight. He leans forward suddenly, toward me, and crooks his finger. I swallow and scoot closer, and suddenly I realize that I’ve trapped him, that I can show him anything, that what he sees will be what I give him and I have to force myself to pay attention to his words.

“I can’t believe you never realized – that no one ever told you, those incompetent – Christ, Granger. If Bellatrix had chosen one of your idiot friends Dobby never would’ve got there in time –“

And my stomach lurches. “Wait, what?”

He knew. My God – of course he knew. But – 

“Legilimens!”

_Too soon, too soon, but a yes whispers across the space between us and you’re in here and I feel like I’m going to vomit because I never – Dobby was a Hogwarts elf, knew we were there, came to rescue us, Dobby died saving us and then you tried to and I knew. I knew because there was only member of the Order of the Phoenix who’d send a Patronus that didn’t speak and the sword – my God, we knew you had the sword – and what Harry knew only by sudden intuition I knew with a practiced certainty and yet I still turned my back on you and walked away because I was scared that we were all going to be lost and there wasn’t any time and then as soon as it was over I ran and ran until I got there and found rust streaks flung in rivulets and a hollow of condensed blood, sticky and murky with dust from the floor, and nothing else but the sound of my sobs as I knelt in the corner by the stairs._

_I knelt and I vomited and cried until there was nothing left in my body, no liquid at all, and my tears mixed with the smears on my palms when I tried to wipe them away and when I licked my lips I could taste your blood, dust and iron, the ash tang of death, and I cast an Auguamenti and drank from my wand and washed all the blood from my clothes._

_I grieved for Fred most of all and then Tonks and then – well Remus had walked out on her when she needed him and there was enough Hufflepuff in me to value loyalty above amiability so you were next, before Remus, strange as that was, and you were the one I could have saved. That was the difference. That was why I felt so much remorse, so much responsibility. I trusted you enough to communicate with the Headmaster’s Office even knowing it was yours, knowing Phineas Nigellus was yours, but even then I was careful to keep up the charade that we couldn’t really trust you because Harry was such a twit…_

“Finite Incantatum,” he whispers. He studies me closely. “Potter couldn’t be trusted because he was a shit occlumens and a shit student, that’s why Dumbledore needed you in the first place.”

None of that was what I meant to say. It feels like we’re going back a thousand years, to things I’ve long forgotten because they just didn’t seem to matter. “I practiced that year. Harry would tell me what you told him, and then I would practice, but I never had anyone who could cast Legilimens and see if it worked.”

“Yes. It was obvious – I could tell immediately that your natural talent had deepened. You became much more controlled that year, much more strategic.”

“Then why didn’t you teach me if I was such a natural?”

His cheeks dot with pink and he looks away, but then after a moment his lips quirk up. “How would your friends have viewed that? If just after you turned into a beauty your creepy old Potions master, known to dislike you, had taken a sudden interest in developing your academic,” he draws the word out to emphasize the depth of his facetiousness, “potential?”

“What are you talking about? I’m plain and bookish and the only thing anyone’s ever been attracted to is the knowledge that I’m a handy wand in a fight, some kind of –“ I pause, and it suddenly hits me and if I weren’t sitting it would knock me off my feet. I have so many friends who love me for who I am, who relate to me emotionally, but no one has ever been attracted to me for myself – for the parts a lot of people find annoying and strange.

That’s why Ron and I couldn’t get it to work. He loved the Hermione Granger the world loved, the clever girl who never turned her back on a friend and fought until the bitter end and all that load of shit that is ultimately just about your reputation and not at all about who you actually are as a person.

I feel nauseous again, lightheaded, but I look at him and he anchors me by saying, “You went back for me.”

I don’t understand him at first because the statement is so obvious there must be more to it considering the source. “Of course, I’m only sorry it –“

“Legilimens.”

_Took me so long, I was going to say, except that all of a sudden you’ve somehow closed the space between us and your body is following your mind and you’re reaching for something else, something you’re not seeing, and if I knew what it was I’d pull it out and offer it to you but I don’t want you to reach in yourself because it will burn you and I wonder how it doesn’t, how you can reach in and draw these things up and not be scalded or deflected. Your thumbs are on my cheeks, running along my jaw, and your breath is hot and not very fresh but I’ve wanted this, wanted you –_

_And this is what you’ve been looking for, so here it is –_

_You kissed me with your hands at my temples, buried in my hair, and you rubbed yourself against me as you undid the clasps on my robes and then you peeled the fabric back and lowered your head and sucked my breast deep into your mouth while your tongue flicked and pressed against the nipple._

His eyes close, breaking the connection, and a moment later his mouth is on mine and he lurches toward me with such momentum that I’m knocked back and my legs are still crossed and he’s trying to duplicate what he saw but he’s fumbling with it, unpracticed, full of fire and ice, desire and terror. I can feel his erection against me as I tilt my pelvis to unravel my legs, and he moans and quivers with his tongue scraping the inside of my lip, and I don’t want him to stop, don’t want to give him time to reconsider.

I feel flush and confident because in this way I have something to teach him. I gasp against his lips, and tear mine away, whispering a spell that banishes our clothes to the other side of the room.

“Hermione,” he chokes, and my hand is between us, sliding around the head of his erection and guiding it between my thighs. He cries out as I cover him in the slick philter and rest his tip against me, allowing him to make the final decision.

He cries out as he thrusts into me, and I moan his name. It shortens into a single syllable, a breath flavored with ecstasy and abandonment as he rocks against me, and I tilt my pelvis to help him find a rhythm, and it’s building into –

“Don’t,” he chokes against my ear.

By the time I process the warning, his face is twisting into a grimace above me and his neck is stretched out and flexed and I reach to touch the vein that’s pulsing beneath the scarred flesh and he’s shuddering and then all the shutters come off – his eyes are bare and there’s not a single mask in place.

I can’t begin to describe the look on his face because it’s something I’ve never seen on anyone, even in the aftermath of battle, some mix of reverence and relief and ecstasy or an excess of all of these.

He collapses on top of me and I haven’t actually come, didn’t reach any sort of physical release, but I don’t care because everything has else has broken open and the first time I believe we might actually have a chance, that this isn’t some sort of insanity even if he did tell me to stop moaning that name, her name for him, into his ear.

“I couldn’t last,” he says, rolling off and away. There’s embarrassment in his voice, vulnerability, shyness. “Not with you panting my name and I –“

“It was lovely,” I whisper, curling up behind him, pressing my breasts against his back and curling my arm over his waist.

Someday we won’t misunderstand each other so much, I think. We may learn to believe that the impossible is real, so real that we’ll eat six of it for breakfast on days we haven’t got any jam.

He doesn’t pull away.

“I can’t wait to do it again.” I kiss the back of his neck, wondering if he’ll allow that too, and I’m surprised when he relaxes and all of a sudden there’s a softness in him again even if he is still a little skeletal.

His hand reaches down and covers my fingers where they tuck around his waist and he twines his fingers through mine. I melt into the contact and press my forehead against his hair. “I really have an Order of Merlin? And a full pardon? And…allies?”

I laugh because he sounds so disbelieving and squeeze tighter. “We Gryffindors like to call them friends, but sure. Right now – as of right now, you have all of those things.”

“Well, fuck me.”

I giggle at the airy lilt in his voice. “Don’t you need a little more time to –“

“Probably. Bugger me, is that better?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve fallen into the fucking Mirror of Erised.”

I think he might’ve just implied he’s the happiest man in the world. It’s a sweet sentiment, but perhaps untrue.

In for a knut, because I have to know where I stand. My voice is thick. “I would’ve thought your mirror would include somebody else.”

“Mmmm. The kind of person who would turn their back on their best friend out of jealousy and fear? Kind that would walk away when you begged them not to, that always wanted you to hide all the parts of yourself that made them uncomfortable? Does yours include Weasley?”

“No, but –“

“You’d still protect his family, would you not?”

Dear God.

I mean yes, but exactly how far?

He shifts and prods at my shoulder until I roll over, and then he tucks his arm under my breasts and pulls me back against him. “I just shagged Minerva’s favorite cub in Potter’s tent, and by all indications I won’t have to deal with any of that lot for another precious thirteen years, by which point they’ll crown me with ivy and anoint me Emperor.”

I giggle, snuggling back against him, tucking my spine against his chest and my knee between his bent legs. He’s thinking, or dozing, and I drift off a bit as well, perhaps sleeping or perhaps just boneless and content, but for a time there is only the steady rhythm of our respiration and our skin, slick with sweat and sticky, set flush.

I’m not sure how much time passes until I’m aware that the bulge tucked under my bum is twitching, and I wiggle my hips, pulling my knee forward so that his growing erection is caught in the wedge of my thighs. I can feel his breath in my hair as he moves his palm from the edge of my ribs up to my breasts where he palms first one and then the other, and I shudder when he catches a nipple between his knuckles and pulls. He’s hard now, his breath puffing from his nostrils which are buried in my hair, rocking his hips. His fingers travel up my sternum to my neck and he pushes my hair aside so that he can suck at my neck. He follows the knots of my spine until they end, and he spreads my cheeks and lifts his shaft until it’s tucked between my folds, the head teasing at the tangle of nerves above my slit, slicking himself with gentle thrusts. He unlatches his fingers and pulls my arm away, turning me and settling back under it with his knees tucked against mine, his eyes roving over my face, cataloging it. I’m not sure I’d rather be anywhere else than right here, right now. “I love you.”

He swallows, and I don’t care that he can’t say it yet because he leans forward and kisses me and it’s sweet and purposeful and curious. His fingers brush against my face and over my hair and he folds my earlobes between his fingers and then follows with his mouth. He sucks at my neck and nuzzles against me and his fingers are everywhere, sliding across my clavicle and over the swell of my hip and into the dip of my throat. Pleasure is rewarded by pleasure as hands that reach some sensitive spot are replaced by lips and teeth and tongue. I’m moaning and arching and leaning into his caresses and he feeds off my sensual energy and directs it into magic that sparks off his skin and winds through my senses. His hands dance and he is calibrating, experimenting, correcting and perfecting.

His mouth is on my breast, and he’s flicking his tongue against the tip, and then he slides a finger between my legs and rubs it, experimentally, across my slit. His hand stills, his attention focused on my breast as he adjusts his tongue until I buck, and when my back arches he hooks two fingers inside me.

And there is nothing but sensation and elation as he studies me and throws himself into the task of learning to play my body as if it’s an instrument. And if there’s no virtuosity yet there is an enormous amount of intent and quite a bit of natural talent.

I lay myself open, rotating my hips so that my knees draw up. He lifts himself, settles back over me on his knees, and I feel his shaft laying thick and hot and solid against the inside of my thigh. He’s aroused again, already, but he shifts his mouth to my right breast, bifurcated by the pink rope of scar tissue, opening his jaw and digging his tongue in circles around the nipple before nipping at it with his teeth. I cry out, rocking against the ball of his hand, thrusting and arcing and flinching as his fingernail flicks against my cervix and his erection twitches against my thigh and he presses his shaft harder into my flesh, extruding the moisture and drawing a moan from his throat. He tries to refocus his drifting attention on suckling my breast, on rolling my clitoris beneath the pad of his thumb, and he tucks his knee underneath him so that his back is curved and his cock sticks straight out but bobs above my hip, and he’s come close enough now that I can rotate my wrist and touch it. He hisses through his teeth, my nipple caught between them, as I peel back the foreskin and swipe the glob of fluid down over the glans with the side of my thumb. “Please,” I beg, frenzied and insistent, “now.”

He shifts, pulls his fingers out, and slicks his shaft with the moisture he’s already drawn out of me. His eyes are unsure but his hands are determined; he tugs at my thighs, nudging them further apart until I hook my ankles around his hips and arch my spine instinctively, and he scoots his knees under my hips. He holds the base of his shaft in his fist as he peels me apart with his fingers and squashes himself against the folds, rubbing his length along my clitoris in a circular motion which builds and builds and I realize as I clench and meet resistance that he’s buried himself inside me and it’s his thumb on my clitoris and his mouth on my lips my jaw the flange of my ear and he’s watching me carefully, interpreting my reactions, intent on securing my pleasure and I give myself over to it. I hear little moans coming from my throat, his name and love and there and yes and all those little half-conscious murmurs of encouragement but I’m lost in the sensation of pressure and friction and pleasure and I break into shudders and spasms. He waits until I open my eyes and look up at him before he bends his head and looks down at the point where we intersect. His muscles seize and he pumps erratically, frantically, with a feral groan and I can feel his pulse, his blood, his heartbeat in the measured spurts of his seed. He pours his life force into me and I’m here, now, here, and this time I hold tight and I don’t let go until he collapses with his face in my hair, spent and tired and tested in a thousand ways.

A few minutes later, when I spell the blanket to cover us where he still lies atop me and turn my face to rest my lips against his forehead, he whispers Happy Christmas.

As long as this road is, as strange as this journey, as much it was and is and always will be a dance with death, the stuff in between, the life part –

That’s a gift.

 

**December 25, 2012**

She’s two, perhaps three. Her black hair is bobbed and hangs about her thin cheeks, and her eyes are round orbs. At the beginning of the clip, her mouth was peeled back like the skin of an orange, her teeth protruding from angular gums like small white beads dotting along the cleft. But here, toward the end of the video, post-surgery, she smiles broadly at the camera. Her tiny hand reaches out and clasps the thumb of the older woman in an MSF polo shirt who’s standing behind her.

The girl’s dentist. One of two in the little outpost high in the mountains of rural Nepal.

It’s Christmas. I’m YouTubing my parents. My mother looks happier in these MSF videos than I’ve ever seen her. She beams at the camera, at her patients, at her coworkers. Dad isn’t in them, but then he never did like having pictures taken.

I hear John behind me, and I quickly shut down YouTube, attempting a non-guilty expression as I swivel in my chair.

“I miss Dad,” he says, echoing my own thoughts perfectly, even if we mean two different men by it. I smile crookedly and hold out my arm, and John is still young enough that he comes closer, allows me to wrap it around his waist and embrace him. I rest my chin on his head. He’s holding a book in his hands.

“Me too. How do you like your book?”

Last year he got an iPad; the year before an Xbox. This year I didn’t give him technology because our lives are changing, but he got a beautiful wooden trunk which showed up three weeks ago in a DHL van, some clothes, and the book.

His lip curls. “It seems like a silly fantasy. Is Dad really there?”

I nod and swallow. I miss him; I miss the castle. I miss Harry and Ginny and Luna and Neville and perhaps even Draco. I miss Minerva.

I run my fingers over the spine, along the gilt-edged vellum.

John squiggles out of my arms and flips open the book. “The origins of the portrait charm are unknown; not until 1382, upon the death of Fergus MacQuarrie, did a Headmaster’s portrait appear in the castle...Mum, how many times did you read this? It keeps falling open to this page.”

I pull him in for another hug, swallow the lump in my throat that appears at the memory of a girl who read that part over and over again, looking for a loophole in the shape of this boy’s father. “Thousands, dear.”

He looks at me like I’m mad and rolls his eyes. “Boring. Don’t you have any books about spells?”

“You’ll get those after you finish this one,” I promise, laughing.

He’s not nearly as impressed by Hogwarts: A History as I was at his age, but it’s important that he learns about the castle and magic and what to expect next year. There are so many things I can’t prepare him for, such as what sort of welcome we’ll (I’ll) receive when I return – but I’m doing the best I can to prepare him for a world where magic isn’t a fantasy, isn’t a secret, but is woven into the fabric of life. Where wands aren’t unregistered and hidden from sight when the neighbors come over. Where portraits move and speak, and ghosts roam around in plain sight.

Where energy and matter and time are bendable, malleable, and yet still constant.

“Are you ready?”

“Let’s go,” I answer, pushing him away before he can pull and grabbing my wand and the picnic basket. I follow him through the kitchen and into the garden. He rushes ahead of me and ducks under the flap. I follow him into the tent and set the basket on the floor before crossing my legs and sitting down next to it. “Happy Christmas, darling.”

I pull out a tin of biscuits and a mug of apple cider.

“Happy Christmas!”

There’s magic here too, just as powerful as the ancient charms that preserve the castle, and just as eternal. It may lack for comforts, but it’s never lacked for love.


	6. January 9

**January 9, 1999**

I wind the scarf more tightly around my neck and wrap my coat more closely about me. For once I’m glad that I’m not subject to curfew, because it means that I can come and go as I please, that I can steal out of the castle late at night. There is snow in the air, swirling about me and landing on my cheeks and on my eyelashes and in my hair, but the cold isn’t bitter and the snow is fine and dry.

It’s a long walk to the cemetery beyond the gates. I pass the tall marble obelisk, white stone against the white snow but so massive that it dominates the landscape with its ridiculous extravagance, dwarfing even the expanse of Dumbledore’s original tomb at the base. There’s still a wreath from Christmas, spelled to hang at the top of the spire, an evergreen circle with a bright red bow.

I pass it without stopping, without feeling anything but frustration that even now, even here, he is still feted as nothing but wise and good and powerful, because the Egyptian monument is a far cry from the small carved Ogham stone, inscribed with ancient runes, that sits at the far edge beyond the rows of plots. Harry chose it, said it was fitting, and he’s right; it’s what the man would probably have chosen for himself. But it still isn’t fair.

A bunch of flowers are fanned at the base of the stone, and they look like a pool of blood. Vomit catches in my throat as I remember the smell of it, the way my hands were slick and then sticky and then finally dry, papered over, as the blood turned to rust, before I washed them with my wand and scrubbed at the webbing between my fingers and the skin around my nails.

Yet his lips weren’t purple, drawn back, and his eyes were glazed and open but not murky. His skin wasn’t mottled, and he was still but not stiff.

Death is so instant, and you know – you know. There’s such a vast gulf between the dead and living that there is no question.

I swallow. “I don’t know if you’re really dead, even.”

I look down, still four or five paces from the stone, and clear a little patch on the grass before casting a warming spell and sitting in it, cross-legged. “I like to think you’re out there somewhere, but…I don’t know if that’s true. It’s probably wishful thinking. I thought for a while maybe the Malfoys or someone on that side had helped you, but that was before Narcissa cried and told Harry how hard it was for them to accept that you’re gone, so…I don’t know where else you would have gone. And if you were,” I say, swallowing hard, “you’d probably have come back now that you’re fully cleared, now that you’ve got your Order of Merlin. It’s even first class, which I know you would have liked.”

Nobody answers, of course, and my voice drifts along the wind, echoing. But it still feels good to talk about this, even if it’s only with the sky and the wind and the snow and the stone.

“Anyway, I think it’s pretty clear that wherever you are, you’re not coming back. Not in this lifetime. But even so, I don’t think you would have liked all this Gryffindor sentimentality. You might have appreciated that it was Neville and Luna and Ginny and I standing around your altar like a bunch of votaries, you might have been amused by it, but…”

I blow the breath I’m holding out of my mouth, smile, and tuck my chin against my knees. “Poppies for the dead, may they sleep in peace, and all that Latin chanting from Luna, and…”

I remember going through his things. Even in his quarters, there had been clues about the identity of the real person. “I don’t think you wanted to remembered as some martyr, either.”

I dig in my handbag and pull out the flask – his flask – which I still haven’t turned over to Harry. I will – eventually. I don’t think Professor Snape was a heavy drinker; I think he was, like me, too cautious to use substances indiscriminately, to excess, but apparently he liked a nip at the Odgen’s now and again. Probably more a form of self-torture, because the stuff is vile, a ritual of forcing himself to relax just a smidgeon. I unscrew the cap and take a swig, coughing. It burns all the way down my throat. “Happy Birthday, Severus Snape. You were a…right bastard and brilliant and the best friend a girl could ever have, and I wish she’d lived long enough to see that. And I wish you were here, so I could say these things to your face, but this is better than not saying them at all, right?”

I push the flask back in my pocket, feeling a thousand times warmer and lighter and maybe whisky isn’t so bad after all. I pull out my wand again and blast the poppies, and when the ashes rain down it no longer looks like blood but confetti, a mass of a red and green and yellow because now the blooms are mixed in with the stems and leaves. I smile broadly.

I walk over to his stone and place the coin in the middle of the pile. It’s spelled to play once and then disenchant, so it will look like someone’s put a knut there, which is perfectly customary. I tap my wand to the coin.

“I found your muggle albums. This one had been played so many times it was spelled against the scratches, so I think you must like have liked it a lot.”

The music washes around me, and then Strummer’s voice shouts hey and the guitar cracks and the singing begins.

Now every cheap hood strikes a bargain with the world, and ends up making payments on a sofa or a girl. Love 'n' hate tattooed across the knuckles of his hands, hands that slap his kids around 'cause they don't understand how –

“Death or glory, becomes just another story,” I say in time to the music, and then I turn and leave before the next stanza begins.

 

**January 9, 2013**

“Where are you slinking off to,” the voice asks, winding its way through the darkness.

“Nowhere, I –“ my voice is muffled, so I pull the scarf down a bit, “was just going out for a walk.”

“It’s freezing out there.” I can barely see him in the darkness and then he mutters a lumos and his wand is a blue glow in the space between us. His lips are curved in a bit of a smile. I smile back, and think – what the hell. He’s been perfectly proper since Christmas, but more knowing, more arch.

“It’s your birthday,” I say.

“Must I be constantly reminded of that?” He shudders, but I think he’s being a bit dramatic. There was an undercurrent of pleasure even in his irritation when he’d walked into the hall this morning to find that all the staff and some of the students had left gifts on his chair and Neville had brought down the sorting hat and had it lead the students in song. He’d snapped that a school had no place for such frivolities but he’d been in a good mood all day, reportedly even roaming about the halls and awarding points. Awarding them. It’s unheard of. My face cracks, and I grin broadly, baring my teeth at him.

“I was following through on a bit of tradition, if you care to join me.”

He looks intrigued, and after a moment he flicks his wand and Winky appears with his coat and scarf. He shrugs both of them on while I wait, wondering if he’s going to be angry or horrified or amused if he follows me. Maybe I shouldn’t…

I put my hand in my coat pocket and finger the shrunken bunch of poppies, the coin.

“You mustn’t get angry with me,” I warn.

He laughs. “I’m increasingly convinced that you’re up to something, Hermione.”

“I am, Severus.” I haven’t called him that to his face before, but I don’t wait to see if he’s angry or accepting or amused. I turn and flick open the doors, walking through them into the cold night air. He doesn’t speak either, but he falls into step beside me and the silence is comfortable, broken by the sounds of our boots as they crunch through the dry snow and the dead leaves rustling in the wind. He doesn’t remark on the fact that I don’t turn toward the main gates but skirt around the edge of the lake, heading for the cemetery. He doesn’t speak as I hold open the iron door hung in the high ringfort walls of the graveyard. “Have you been here before?”

If he’s going to break down at the sight of Dumbledore’s monument, I want to be prepared.

“Several times,” he grunts, nodding, and from the warmth of his voice I can tell that he’s put to rest whatever ghosts could haunt him here. I feel better about my decision to invite him.

“I’ve never had company for this. It’s ironic – you, now.”

He raises an eyebrow in question but instead I turn, my steps purposeful as I walk down the hill, past the neat rows and the marble monstrosity, to the squat Ogham stone at the far edge. I pull the poppies out of my pocket, enlarge them, and toss them at the base of the stone, and then I chance a look at him.

He looks disgusted. “Poppies, Granger? What sort of twaddle is this?”

I giggle. “Not my idea, but since you’re here Neville and Luna didn’t do their part, and I can’t do mine without them.”

I clear a space on the ground, warming it, and then sit down cross-legged. He smiles quickly, squelches it, and then sits down next to me, folding his knees and wrapping his arms around them. I fish out the flask and unscrew the cap, taking a swig. He’s watching me with an expression I can’t quite define, and I remember his kiss and want him to kiss me again. I offer him the flask.

“This is mine,” he exclaims, as he’s bringing it to his lips, and he takes a long gulp and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth before slanting his eyes at me. “You nicked my flask.”

“I held onto it for you,” I counter, winking, pulling out my wand and blasting the poppies before he can comment further, and as the bits of blossom and stamen and stem rain down he throws his head back and laughs and it’s warm and rich and my toes curl. I flush, my cheeks pinking in the darkness.

He leans over, grasping my chin in his fingers, turns my head and kisses me.

I cast a charm around us to keep the cold and wind out, an invisible bubble of winter-night warmth that settles over us like heat from the fireplace and wooly socks and soft jumpers. I tap my wand to the coin in my palm and by the time the last stanza plays –

Cause years have passed and things have changed, and I move anyway I want to go. I'll never forget the feeling I got when I heard that you'd got home, and I'll never forget the smile on my face, because I knew where you would be. And if you're in the crown tonight, have a drink on me.

But go easy...step lightly...stay free.

I’ve wound up underneath him and my breast is in his mouth and his fingers are crooked inside me and I’m coming apart while I’m keening his name.

 

**January 9, 1999**

“We first – your birthday, last year.”

“Show me,” he says, and I shift, turn over, tip my eyes up. I’m exhausted, but it’s his birthday –

“Legilimens,” he says, and you’re not even holding your wand.

I came apart with your hands buried in me next to your gravestone and then you wrapped us in your cloak and flew us back to the tower, where you somehow got in through the window and then you spread me out on rug in the front of the fireplace in the Headmaster’s Suite and shagged me until the wee hours of the morning and I thought I was exhausted, then, but –

“Finate Incantatum,” he laughs, and he’s out of my head again and smiling at me. “I’m sure I’ll wear out eventually.”

He hasn’t slept, I don’t think, in the past two and a half weeks. He shags me raw in the morning, packs me out the door with a case of samples, and works on developing the balms and hand lotions and aromatherapy compounds all morning. Then he doesn’t let me out of the bed again for two or three hours and he talks about his ideas and my progress while he explores my body in a series of movements that lead to a final crescendo before he dozes for fifteen minutes, gets up, and checks on our…potions. Organic luxury balms for muggle middle England.

We’re going to hit the market at exactly the right time.

“You only look this healthy because you’re eating like a horse,” I tease, pinching his side which is filling out slightly. “I’m worried about you. I can barely keep up with you.”

“I’m still shy of forty,” he says proudly, as if being merely thirty-nine is an accomplishment. “I never expected to see this birthday.”

I glance over at him slyly, intuition dawning. He leans over and away and turns on the CD player I bought him, and music fills the room. He clicks forward, counting.

I am the son and the heir of a shyness that is criminally vulgar. I am the son and heir of nothing in particular. You shut your mouth, how can you say, I go about the things the wrong way? I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does.

He pulls me on top of him, nipping and biting at my sore, chapped lips. His mouth trails down my neck, his tongue worrying at the inflamed spots where he’s drawn bruises in past explorations. He’s gone about this as if he’s been mapping the planes of body, surveying the topography of a continent, and now his hands are deft and assured as they travel over my skin.

The Smiths play in the background as he thrusts up from underneath me and sheathes himself inside. My eyes close briefly, but he stills, and I look down at him. “It’s my birthday,” he whispers.

I nod. He’s been acting like each moment is a new lease on life, too precious to waste. This is one is hardly any different, given his recent intensity, although he’s totally still beneath me. “Legilimize me.”

It takes me a moment to realize he hasn’t cast the spell, that he’s used it as a verb. That he’s asking me to –

I move slightly, and I’m reminded that he’s inside me, that my body is coursing with pleasure even if I’m tired. My voice shakes. “I’ve never – “

“It’s similar to an Obliviate, but more focused, more –“

So I have done it before, but never with someone’s knowledge. I hesitate, then grasp my wand off the table. “Legilimens.”

And I’m here, with you, inside you, and it’s a loop between your physical invasion of my body and my mental invasion of your synapses.

And it’s a library, the Hogwarts library, how fascinating – it’s my library. And I’m scared I’ll break the eye contact, the connection, so I head for the Restricted Section because I won’t have much time and you’ve let me in here and I want the good stuff, the stuff you’ve hidden away, and I cross the barrier easily but I hear you telling me no, that I don’t want what’s in there, that the Restriction Section is the least guarded portion of the collection, but here, this is what you mean. There’s a howl of pain, and a belt and a wand and a wand again, and I snap the book closed and thrust it back on the shelf.

Domestic charms, you say, and I think that sounds so silly but I retrace my steps and I pull a random volume from the shelves.

And my body is beginning to coil, to tense, as your pubic bone digs against my folds, but I manage to open a book –

And there’s the sound of laughter and bicycle wheels crunching over gravel and the smells of a Hogwarts feast and the joy and freedom of flight. I see an image of myself, drawn in your mind, and I look healthy and at the height of my youth as I did before the worst of the war, still innocent. Except I’m dressed in Bellatrix’s clothes, her corsets and leather and lace, and my hair is even madder than usual and glows about me like a bronze halo. I’m riding a dragon, my cheeks flushed, and brandishing a sword. It’s what you imagined when you heard of it, I realize, an avenging virgin goddess, a sort of wild-haired Galadriel.

Eowyn, you correct.

Eowyn. And Freyja and Medb and Nimue.

And then it’s here, and my cells begin to split apart as I come undone with waves of pleasure and I can’t hold the eye contact anymore Sev –

“Sev –“

“I – love - you,” he grunts, each syllable distinct and accompanied by a thrust, and his face twists in agony as he fills me, slick and increasingly soft. I tumble down beside him and cast a cleaning charm over us both, and then pull the blanket up around us.

We don’t talk about it. I listen to his breathing as it grows deep and even and I realize he’s asleep. Not dozing as I snuggle against him, but knackered, his jaw going slack and his throat rumbling with the beginnings of a snore.

So tired.

But sated. And content. 

 

**January 9, 2013**

I miss him, even though somewhere out there {Hogwarts, now, but here, then} he’s consumed by me, making love to me.

The Ouroboros swallowed its tail, and time has no beginning and no end. This is the price of it, counted out in solitary hours.

I miss him, but soon.

Soon.

Love is most nearly itself when here and now cease to matter.


	7. February 15

**February 15, 1999**

“Hermione!” I stop halfway up the stairs and turn around, balancing my books on my hips. Ginny is flushed and out of breath, and she looks exhausted. She was probably out late last night, breaking curfew with the help of the Maurader’s Map and the cloak. I was asleep. She smiles and holds out a letter which has been – if looks are any indication – crumpled up and stuffed in her pocket. I take it, and she immediately grabs my books so that I can open it. “Sorry I missed breakfast, but I’ve been looking for you –“

“Oh,” I reply, because now I’ve gotten past the address – Dear Hermione – and I’m into the body of the letter which seems to be some sort of apology.

I know I said I needed time but I’d like to give this another go when you get out of school this summer. Harry said we could all live at Grimmauld, and I think that might be nice. It was just too soon for me to try to take care of someone…

My heart clenches. It feels like it’s in my stomach. “It’s from Ron,” I say.

She nods and grasps my hand, her eyes filling with tears. “I know! He told Harry he’s sorry, that he was stupid to tell you he wasn’t going to wait around while you read a bunch of silly books at Hogwarts. I think he finally understands that you needed to do this.”

I’m not sure that he really does understand, and that scares me, but he wants to try and he signs off with “Love, Ron” and isn’t this what I’ve always wanted? For Ron to want me?

And to have a family, because Ginny’s slung her arm around me and she’s still holding my books. “Let’s go up to the Room of Requirement.”

“I can’t,” I say, “I’ve got Ancient Runes –“

She shrinks down my books and slips them in her pocket. “Not anymore. Come on, I have to tell you about last night. Harry was sad you weren’t there – we all were.”

Well, Valentine’s Day is a silly holiday when you’re alone.

I rub my thumb against the letter I’m holding and I smile. Maybe next year, I won’t be.

  

**February 15, 2013**

“Hey you,” I say, stepping through the doors. He glances up, adjusts his readers, and smiles at me.

He looks a little wistful – it’s a strange expression considering the man. A large grimore is open on his desk, the vellum pages spread carefully over the boards to protect the spine, and he’s reading it. He doesn’t seem protective of it, so I step closer and peer, upside-down, at the pages.

It’s the Hogwarts registry, open to February. Magical children are recorded on the pages. The last entry, under 29th February, 2012 is first-year Ravenclaw Ari Goldsmid. My eyes travel over the pages, and I realize that the most recent entries, next years’ students, only go up through the 15th. Francoise Weasley is on the 3rd, and Melosina Zabini is on the 9th. There’s a little girl with an M next to her name on the 11th, a Sophie Nichols, and I wonder if Severus will have me conduct the muggleborn visits as Minerva did. The entry for today is a Janus Prince – magical parents, because there’s no notation, but I’ve only ever heard that name in one context, one family. My thumb pauses where it’s marking my place, and I dart a glance at him. “Prince – any relation, you think?”

“Oh, probably,” he drawls, but there is something off in his voice that I can’t quite pinpoint, and I think maybe he knows how they’re related and he just doesn’t want anything to do with his family, no matter how distant. “Most purebloods are related somehow or another.”

“I don’t know,” I reply, scooting around the desk and sitting on his knee. He wraps his arms around me and buries his face in my hair. “If I had any family, I’d want to know them, I guess.”

He doesn’t ask me to clarify, so he must know about my parents. He squeezes me tighter in his arms. “There’s still plenty of time for you to have a family.”

How does he sense that too? I wonder if he wants children. I swallow as I realize I wonder if he wants them with me. He gave me a Valentine’s Day gift, and a peck on the cheek in front of the students, but even though we’re sleeping together he hasn’t said anything about the future or his intentions. Maybe it’s time we talked about it. “Is there? Have you ever thought about what it would be like –“

“I think any child of yours will be bright and precocious and that you will be a fantastic mother,” he interrupts, and I turn to kiss him. It’s slow and appreciative and encouraging, and then he folds me in his arms and draws me close to him. I realize he still hasn’t answered the question I really wanted to ask, and he draws me away from it further when he speaks, but I can’t exactly accuse him of changing the subject. “Any progress with Minerva?”

I shake my head. None.

“I wonder if we should start asking if she’s doing this to herself.”

“You mean consciously,” I clarify, prepared to tell him that he’s wrong, that she wouldn’t.

“Not necessarily. What if she’s trying to protect herself from something, from sort of knowledge? Do you remember anything from that night?”

“I wasn’t there – she was alone up here. And then Dilys appeared in the Infirmary and summoned Poppy, and once we got her out of here, and the office sealed behind us, all of the portraits went silent.”

Now they say they can’t speak without her consent, but it’s still effectively silence.

I remember the box that’s sitting in bedroom. “I still haven’t opened Dumbledore’s gift –“

He cuts me off by pressing his fingers against my mouth. “Don’t open it looking for a way to help Minerva, or anyone else for that matter. I don’t want you tempted by your compassion.”

It’s a fair warning, but I wonder what’s in there, and my mind has been churning over it constantly. “I think I should open it. Will you come with me?”

“I can’t.” He pushes me off his lap, and he looks apologetic. “I’ve an errand to run this afternoon.”

“Oh.” I’m disappointed, but I don’t ask where he’s going or why or if he wants company. I’m still trying to manage my expectations with him. I like him, and he likes me. Maybe it’s love; it feels like it, but it hasn’t been tested.

He kisses me again and pulls me into an embrace that’s fierce and intense. “If you do open it,” he says, and his voice breaks and I think he’s scared of what’s in it, “I want you to remember that I love you.”

And just like that, he says it, and before I can process it or come up with a response, he retreats out the door and leaves me standing in the middle of his office, confused.

And I forget to be interested in whatever’s in Dumbledore’s box. He loves me. He said it.

He loves me. I smile. The future could hold anything.

 

**February 15, 1999**

“Severus,” I call, seeking his attention. He looks up from where he’s bottling little tin jars with solid perfume and he grunts. I check my figures one last time. “We’re going to break even again this month. Maybe even make a little extra.”

He smiles, and then focuses his attention back on his bottling, turning his head away.

I write out cheques for a few invoices and seal them with the stubs, tossing them into a pile for the post. I file the statements and bin up the envelopes for recycling, and then I stack a tray of the stabilized jars for labeling. He’s at the end of a cycle, so I put on an electric teakettle and grab a couple of mugs from the cabinet, and a wedge of cheese and some figs from the ice box.

He pours out our tea and sits down across from me, settling back into his chair. He raises his mug in a pantomime toast. “To Seth Prince and –“

“Please, don’t,” I warn. Once he became interested in how we were surviving, he started paying attention to the post and figured out our aliases and now he delights in mocking them.

He snickers and snorts. “To Jerry Evans and Don Reynolds and –“

“Don’t!” I squeal again.

“Jeannie N. Parker, middle name undoubtedly Nosy.”

“I wasn’t the one who came up with it!” I’m protesting in vain because he loves teasing me like this, and the more I squeal the happier he becomes. Dumbledore had ridiculous taste. I pout a little. “Bastard.”

“Mmmhmm,” he croons, and tickles the underside of my wrist. I squirm and flush. “Fancy a quick little fantasy fulfillment to celebrate?”

I laugh and bat his hand away. “We’re celebrating that you’re a bastard?”

“That we made our expenses.”

“Oh.” I smile. “Sure.”

“All right,” he says, leaning forward. He’s serious. “You mentioned detention.”

I bite my lip, wondering if this is going to be some sick twisted quickie where he spanks me and then shags me on top of the table, and my breath quickens. I nod and brush back my hair.

He grabs the March issue of National Geographic off the top of the telly, and I think – dear God, he’s going to swat me with a magazine – but instead of rolling it up he flips it open and begins to read.

I watch him, wondering where he’s going with this, my brow furrowed. After a few minutes, he looks up at me and narrows his eyes. “Miss Granger, you have exactly half an hour to finish the washing. And don’t interrupt me by staring.”

He goes back to reading.

I let out a bark of laughter. “You can’t be serious.”

“I rather thought you knew what detention with me entailed. You’re not going anywhere until the washing’s done, and the more quickly you work the more quickly you can leave,” he monotones.

“I’ve got you there. It’s my kitchen too, and I don’t want to leave.”

He’s not going to sucker me into doing all the work while he sits there and reads in some absurd prank. I’m not going to fall for that one.

He sighs. “This isn’t going to work if you don’t play along.”

“Fine. Say I do the washing –“

“Then I’ll spank you for shoddy work and make you practice licking things clean with your tongue.”

“So wait.” I pull at the edge of the magazine until he looks up, annoyed. “I do the washing and give you a blowie, and I get…what?”

“Do you think detention usually involved some sort of Dionysian orgy?” He snorts again. “You get detention. It’s not supposed to be about meeting your needs.”

“I didn’t mean it quite this literally,” I say, getting up. I’ll start on the washing. Maybe he’ll have a flash of creativity before I’m done.

 

**February 15, 2013**

“Is he here yet?” John asks, knocking at my door.

“Not yet,” I call, and his footsteps pound down the hall. I’ve tried to coax my hair into cooperating, and I’ve put on my blue dress and done my mascara. He’s not been here since early Christmas morning. I haven’t seen him since his new love affair began, and I wonder if he’ll still find me attractive or if I’ll look so much worse, so much older, in comparison.

There’s a soft pop and now he’s here and he sets down his parcel and his hands are on my face and his mouth is against mine and his embrace is fierce. “I’ve missed you.”

“But she –“

“I love you. You – here, now, always. But memories are worth something, Hermione.”

He runs his hand over my hair before kissing the tip of my nose. “Stay here.”

He lets go of my hand and leaves the bedroom, but he doesn’t shut the door completely behind him. I watch through the crack as John bounds up the stairs and flies into his father’s arms. He wraps him in a hug and lifts him up, and his voice cracks as he sets him down and muffles his hair. “I’ve missed you. Happy Birthday.”

“I’ve missed you too, Dad! Mum said you were bringing me a gift – what is it?”

I pick up the parcel and toe open the door, setting it on the floor in the hallway. It’s wrapped in brown paper, and John reaches down and peels it back. He’s quiet as he leans forward and opens the door of the cage. “It’s an owl.”

He’s read enough of the book to understand because he smiles broadly. “It’s for school, isn’t it?”

There’s a tapping at the window in his bedroom at the end of the hall. I look at Sev and he smiles over the top of John’s head, and it’s a twisted, knowing smile, a smile full of gratitude for blessings and grief that time passes so quickly, a smile only parents ever wear. I swallow and take his hand, twining my fingers through his, and he speaks, his voice only marginally more stable than mine would be. “Speaking of owls, there’s one at your window.”

We follow him into his bedroom and watch as he opens it and takes the letter. Sev reaches forward with a treat and hands it to John, whose face is full of wonder as the owl eats it from his hand, fluffs its feathers, and flies off.

My left hand is still holding his, so I reach up with my right to dab at my tears. Johns sits on his bed and breaks the seal.

“Dear Mr. Prince,” John begins aloud, and this time Severus reaches out with his thumb and rubs away the tears that are falling down my cheeks.


	8. April 22

**April 22, 1999**

“You’ve been ready for weeks, my dear. You should get some sleep.” Minerva rests her palm on my back, reaches over my shoulder, and gently shuts my NEWT Defense textbook. “I’ve told Madam Pince not to bother you, but she’s worried about you. She says you’re here all the time.”

I blink my eyes and try for a smile, but I’m exhausted and it doesn’t come out right. Minerva sits across the table from me.

“Hermione, you’re a brilliant witch. You don’t need to prove anything.”

“I just want to make sure I’m prepared,” I defend, and it’s a rote, memorized defense.

She takes my hand in hers. “I was driven. Like you are – driven to succeed. I even worked at the Ministry for a while, until I realized I could do more good here than trapped in all that red tape. But even here – love really is all that matters in the end. I’m not saying your schoolwork isn’t important, but – “

“It’s not.” I stack my books into a pile. She’s right. “I get caught up in things that don’t matter.”

She shakes her head and laughs. “We all do – it’s human nature. Now let’s go down to the kitchens and ask the elves for a mug of chocolate.”

I pack up my books, and I realize it’s almost over, this chapter of my life. The future is wide open. It could hold anything – anything at all.

 

**April 22, 2013**

Confidential. Deliver to Hermione Granger.

My stomach rolls with trepidation, with tension, with excitement. This cask is my Pandora’s Box, and I will be faced with the eternal question of what it will unleash, how far down the years the consequences will wind.

Whatever it contains, I am ready. It’s my choice, but I have good counsel as well.

I lay the parchment aside and tap my wand to the cord. The knot falls away and then the paper. Inside is a smooth wood trunk, shrunk down to sixteenth size. A letter is folded on top of it, this one sealed, and there’s something wrapped in another layer of brown paper inside it. I break open the wax, and flick the parchment open.

_Miss Granger,_

_This trunk will reveal itself to you alone. Be cautious with it – it will kill anyone else who attempts to discover its contents. You will have need of it before this is finished._

_Professor Dumbledore_

I shake my head and unwrap the object in my hand, and I almost drop it when I realize what it is. “Lemondrop, Miss Granger?”

I look over it, this miniature portrait set in a cardboard frame, and narrow my eyes. “Where’s Severus?”

He twinkles at me, shrugs, and pops the candy into his mouth. “Looking over the budget for the Board of Governors, last I saw him.”

“So you really are…real? It would’ve been nice if I’d had this fifteen years ago!” A lot easier than relying on Phineas Nigellus.

“Ah, yes. Pity. Well done, by the way. I’m disappointed we haven’t had time to chat in private since the end of the war.”

I don’t tell him that I’ve made sure we haven’t, because I was always worried what I might say. I narrow my eyes. “What’s in the box?”

“I wasn’t sure Severus would be able to finish his part of the task, and I didn’t foresee you having the foresight to take Black’s portrait.”

“You never did have very much faith in us,” I accuse.

“My faith, Hermione – all of it – was in the three of you.”

I nod. “Harry and Ron and I, the Golden Trio –“

“Severus and Harry and yourself.”

This brings me up short. “What’s in the box, Headmaster?”

“You still have a choice, my dear. We can always choose love.”

He slides out of the frame, back to the Headmaster’s Office or the Ministry or wherever he hides, and I’m no closer to feeling safe with whatever this contains than I was. I consider waiting until Severus is here, but for some reason I feel like I need to do this on my own. I hold my breath and open the lid.

There’s another sheet of paper.

_Traitors surround you, of falsehoods beware, but as for the Castle the Prince is its heir. The stag must take heed - all is not as it seems. Go back to the last place you will not be seen._

Another riddle with poor scansion, although this is Dumbledore’s work rather than Snape’s.

The intuition I haven’t even processed is confirmed as I peel back the piece of paper. Everything in the truck is shrunk down to miniature size, tiny valises and tiny wands and a tiny key and tiny picture of a cottage tucked in a grove. Except that on top, shiny and round and gleaming, just the right size to fit in my palm, lies a time turner.

 

**April 22, 1999**

“And then I rushed upstairs and I dumped it on your desk and I said that we were wrong all along, and that Dumbledore provided for you after all but it had all depended on me and I failed you.”

He shifts next to me and props his chin on his hand. If black can eyes can twinkle, his are. Smoldering with humor, perhaps. “And then?”

“Well halfway through it I realized – who’d been tasked with seeing that it got to me in the first place? And wasn’t withholding it a sort of choice, too?”

He laughs. “You’re too clever for your own good.”

His hand trails down my hip, and he kisses the tip of my nose. I snuggle into his arms.

“You were silent for a long time. And then you said that it didn’t matter when I did it, just that I had. And that you’d wanted me to know the consequences before I was asked to sacrifice that much.”

He kisses me. “Minerva forced my hand, you know.”

“How so?”

“I think she wanted to know the answer – felt like she deserved to know how the story ends. Shut down – I think she meant for you to find the box, meant for you to make the choice then. I don’t think she knew the Head’s office would also close down and that I’d be forced to be the one to give it to you.”

The magic of Hogwarts – it’s magic he understands on a much deeper level than I do. My fingers trail over his ribs in little patterns. “What’s it like, being Headmaster?”

I see the fear in his eyes, and I put my palm to his cheek. “Not that – not last year, that’s not what I meant. Someday you’ll describe it as tedious politics and troublesome opinionated staff and you’ll laugh at how ridiculous it is. I want to understand the connection between the Head and the castle.”

He rolls over, and I think I’ve pushed too far, but I realize he just needs space to speak when he begins to talk. “It’s…your greatest ally. You serve it, but it serves you in return. There’s nothing conscious about it.”

My voice is small as I venture into territory I’ve never asked him to traverse. “Ginny says it wasn’t playful that year, that even the staircases were regimented and the ghosts were circumspect.”

He’s silent, but I can hear his breathing and it’s deep and even. I reach for his wrist and wind my fingers around it. “Neville says that the corridors would open and hide them from the Carrows, and when the last passage out was sealed off the pathway opened in the Room of Requirement. He and Luna say that the castle walked the fragile line with you, outwardly supporting the regime but subtly undermining it the whole time.”

“Minerva says that she knows the exact moment that she became Headmistress, and she’s always said it was the moment you died, but that was also the moment she knew you’d been on their side the whole time because the castle felt it as a loss.”

“No,” he corrects. “I knew he was going to kill me. Severing my connection with the castle was the only way to ensure the wards would hold – they need the combined power of intent behind them. What did you say, Hermione? What sort of potty theories did you expound?”

I shake my head. “I didn’t. I just thought…you’d been just like us – just caught up in something that demanded everything. And I wished – I wish – I’d been nicer to you. Before…”

“You’re here now.”

It doesn’t matter. The past, the future.

Here, now, I am. We are.

 

**April 22, 2013**

Once I gave Severus a broad outline of what tonight holds, about the box I dropped on his desk. But I never told him about the guilty cringe he wore when he realized that even then, even before I pulled the pin, I understood the paradox.

I open the trunk that’s sitting on my bedside table and reach inside, folding back the paper and clearing my throat. After a moment, a flash of lavender appears. There’s a candy stuck in the white beard.

He winks at me. “We can always choose love.”

“Did we ever have a choice?”

His smile is like the Cheshire Cat’s. “We are at every moment choosing to love or not to love.”

“That’s not what I meant. We’re trapped in a loop.”

“He wanted you to have a choice. He foresaw the ramifications better than I did, it seems.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, because in the end this is what bothers me most, the fragile nature of our happiness. “What if I’d done it at a different time, or not at all?”

“It would still be the same in essentials. It would all still be love.”


	9. May 1: Part One

**May 1, 1999**

“You hurt me,” I whisper, and he holds his palms up, trying to cut me off.

“I know I did, but it was just too soon, yeah? I love you, Hermione.”

I’m silent. My emotions are a ball in my throat, suspended there, choking me. He grasps my hand in his larger one and weaves his fingers through it, and I allow this, allow him to lean over and kiss me. His lips are soft and wet and insistent, and he groans.

I lean into his embrace, and his hands fumble at my skirt, and even though we’re still kissing I push his fingers away from the assault they’re making on my thighs. He tears them away. His face is flushed, and his pupils are so dilated they’re merely rimmed with blue. “Ron, wait.”

“I’m tired of waiting,” he says, and he moves his hands to my blouse, fumbling with the buttons. “Don’t you want me?”

A thump and a crash comes from my sitting room, followed by a trail of giggles. Ginny and Harry are doing God only knows what in there; they haven’t seen each other since Easter, and Ginny led us all up here to my rooms, shoved Ron and I into the bedroom and told us to ‘work things out’ and then locked the door. My nose scrunches at the thought of Harry and Ginny doing unspeakable things on my sofa. I cast a muffliato in response to a low grunt from behind the wall, and look back at Ron. I’m nervous and unsure.

“It won’t hurt that bad, I promise,” he says, and his hands continue their assault on the fabric of my shirt. “If we’re going to – I need –“

He’s unbuttoned my shirt and he pushes my bra up over my breasts, so that they sit below it. There’s a frenzy to him as he rubs his thumbs over the nipples and then pinches them, and I pull away from the pain. “Shhhh, just let yourself go, it’ll feel good, I promise.”

I wonder if there’s something wrong with me, but this is isn’t what I envisioned when I thought of sex, of making love. I can’t even explore him because he won’t slow down long enough to let me touch him. He’s sucking at my neck and tugging at my knickers and then suddenly both of us are naked and he’s holding his erection and jamming it between my legs.

“I love you, Hermione,” he says again, and I close my eyes and he shoves himself inside me, tearing me open. It’s so painful that I bite my lip.

I watch him as he thrusts into me. His tongue is sticking out of the corner of his mouth and his eyes are closed. I’ve never seen him so intent, so dedicated to completing a task. His face begins to contort and he grunts, his thrusts becoming more and more erratic. And then he shouts “Merlin!” and collapses on top of me. My hands rest around him, on top of his shoulder blades, as the hardness filling me begins to retract and recede.

“That was fantastic,” he murmurs sleepily, and soon his breaths are deep and even and a bit of drool is collecting in the hollow of my clavicle, under his chin.

 

**May 1, 1999**

My mind is churning, and I can barely pay attention even though everything is telling me to memorize this moment. I brush that aside – there is too much to do, to many things to account for.

“So we’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” He runs his hand through his hair, which has a few tufts of gray at the back of his head now.

“At the party,” I answer, nodding and looking up. I think it’s the truth – it must be. Harry smiles back and pats the cloak again, and I wonder why he’s lingering, if he knows, if he somehow suspects what I’m about to do.

“Right.” He nods again, and I stare at him, waiting for him to tell me why he’s dithering. He looks away, and flushes. “It’s just I’d prefer if you didn’t use it for any – you’re not going to take it into the bedroom, are you?”

He’s on a roll now, blundering his way into awkward territory. And I’m so relieved that Harry is just being Harry, and that he isn’t going to try to stop me.

“Because I’m fine with you being with him, really I am, and we’ve all grown up, but I’d just – it’s still Snape, and that’s my cloak, and I don’t want to have to imagine –“

I laugh. “We’re not going to use it as a sexual prop! I told you, I’m conducting an experiment.”

“Great,” he replies, and then his eyes crinkle at the corners. “It’s not sporting, know you. He’s scary enough without being invisible.”

“For the last time,” I huff, but we’re both laughing now, “I’m borrowing because I need it for something. I’m not turning it over to the Headmaster.”

My stomach flips over, and the smile freezes on my face. Harry notices, and his fades. “All right, Hermione?”

I swallow. “Yeah. It’s just this time of year, you know…”

The time when everything turns, and returns, and ends in new beginnings.

“I know,” he whispers, kissing my cheek. “I should get home to Ginny and the kids. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Harry.”

“Night love,” and then he is gone, out the door, and he shuts it softly behind him. He’ll go back up to the Headmaster’s Office, exchange awkward pleasantries with Severus, and floo home. I shake out the cloak, and study it, and then place it gently back on the back of the sofa. My palms prick with sweat so I wipe them again on my jeans.

It’s been hard not to over-pack. I look around and see if there’s anything, anything – but it’s everything. It’s my whole life, and I can’t take it with me.

With any luck, I’ll be back for it.

Tonight.

 

**May 1, 1999**

His voice is hoarse; it croaks in the darkness. “If I could choose this – choose you – I would.”

“I’d do it all over again,” I whisper, cuddling back against him. His hand is around my waist, and his breath is in my hair.

“Tell me,” he whispers, “about all the nights between that one and this one.”

“That’s more than a thousand and one. Even Scheherazade – “

“Tell me about last year.”

I begin to turn over, because I can show him, I can allow him in and – he holds me fast, not allowing me to turn.

“Tell me.”

With my voice. Aloud.

So I begin with this night. All of them.

 

**May 1, 2013**

“Be good,” I remind him, and I kiss his cheek again.

“I will,” he squeals, squirming out of my arms.

“It just for the weekend,” I promise again.

“Bye, Mrs. Prince –“ Michael calls, dragging John away.

“I’ve told him –“ Michael’s mum begins, waving her hands, but I cut her off.

“It doesn’t matter. I answer to anything.” It’s damn near true. I smile. In a different world, a world without magic, she and I could have been friends. Good friends.

“I’ll take good care of them,” she promises, and I think – maybe we are. Even in this one.

“Thanks, Julie.”

I turn and walk away, heading for the Mini that’s parked in the drive.

I’m leaving him in muggle Middle England.

But it’s alright. I shift the key in the ignition. I’ll be back for him.


	10. May 1: Ends and beginnings

**May 1, 2013**

I wrap the cloak about me again and reach into my handbag. It’s all there – the trunk, the box, the tent.

I’m mad. Panic clutches my throat, and for a moment I can’t breathe. And then I remember how, and it comes in gulps and gasps. I steady my hands, wipe my palms again on my jeans. I reach into my left pocket, my hand grasping the potions, the bezoar, the needle and thread. They’re all there.

I’m mad to do this. Mad. I can’t use magic; there’s too much risk in it. A single apparition is all I can gamble.

I steady my breath again. There’s no room for panic, no room for mistakes. My mind clears. I check the door again, the door to the cabinet under the stairs.

The time turner feels hot and alive as I fish it out of my pocket. I’ve already turned it, already set it – it’s only held by a single pin. A year instead of an hour for every turn. It’s dangerous, risky magic.

Is it worth it?

Is Janus Prince our son?

He’s never said.

I've never asked.

He’s never said if we’re happy.

But he wouldn’t be here at all if we weren’t.

I pull the pin, and the ball spins.

 

**May 1, 2012**

“I thought I might find you out here,” Minerva says, joining me at the rail. My hands rest against it and I’m staring up at Orion. I nod, and she continues, “thinking about things.”

“Why is it always the past?” I ask.

She stares out at the sky too, and her mouth is set in a grim line. We’re so much alike, Minerva and I. I feel as if I’m slowly transforming into her. “Because that’s where we can study our choices.”

Yes, I think. Our choices. It’s not the losses we couldn’t prevent – Fred and Tonks and Dobby – but the losses we could and didn’t.

I swallow. “I wish I’d gone back for him. Professor Snape.”

She smiles sadly. “I wish you could’ve known him better. If things had been different, I think you could have been friends.”

I think of the sword, the connection through a portrait, the small twist that played about his lips as we considered one another over the top of Umbridge’s ridiculous head. I think of him standing in the hallway, his face awash with grief and fear and determination, emotions flayed and eyes flashing as he ordered me back into his office.

“In a way, I think we already were.”

 

**May 1, 2011**

“Angelina, pass me the –“

“Merlin, James, get off the sideboard –“

“Mummy, Fred told me –“

“Stop it, Teddy!”

“Molly love, could you –“

“Come on, Hermione,” Harry whispers, his hand on my shoulder. “How about we get some fresh air?”

 

**May 1, 2010**

“We’re very glad you joined us, Madam Granger.”

I shift in the hard chair and attempt a smile, studying the beautiful cut crystal cocktail flute in my hands. “It’s my pleasure, Madam Malfoy.”

“Now that you’re Draco’s colleague,” Lucius begins, and it feels like something is crawling up my spine, but Narcissa waves her hand and he stops speaking, studying me closely.

I table my chips.

“I supported Minerva’s decision because your son was the best choice for the school, for the future of Slytherin, and because I think it’s what Professor Snape would have wanted.”

For the first time in my life, I see what a genuine smile looks like on Lucius Malfoy’s face, and I’d be a liar if I couldn’t admit that it’s a lovely sight.

 

**May 1, 2009**

“No, I don’t think that’s what Perecelsus meant at all,” I protest, but Minerva is shaking her head as she refills our whiskey.

“If you factor in Euclidian geometry it works.”

“So it’s – “

“Transfiguration, potions, and arithmancy.”

“But only Flamel was ever able to –“

“Oh, I’m not saying I could actually create a Philosopher’s Stone, goodness me! There’s an art to it surely, but the formula itself isn’t so difficult.”

“And the question still remains why you’d ever want to. Messing about with things like immortality, or time – it’s such a slippery slope.”

“It would be like anything else, I suppose. If there’s was some reason you needed one, and your only motive was love –“ she shakes her head. “Maybe not even then.”

 

**May 1, 2008**

“Ten years”, he whispers, his arm around my waist and holding me tight. “I don’t want to, Hermione.”

I look at the parchment that’s resting on his lap, and tuck my head against his shoulder. “You’re going to be brilliant, Harry.”

“I guess so,” he says weakly. “I just hate giving speeches. Thanks for helping me – for always being here for me.”

“Always.”

 

**May 1, 2007**

“It’s after midnight,” I bark out, blinking.

“Yeah, sorry, it’s just Professor Longbottom said –“

“What is so critical that you needed to –“

“I can’t find Sherwood and Antrim, and I think they might’ve gone to the Forbidden Forest.”

I blink again, suddenly awake. “Sorry?”

The Head Girl and 7th-year Gryffindor prefect, Miss McKibbon, ducks her head. “There’s a rumor about something called a Resurrection Stone –“

I nod, cutting her off, and I don’t invite her in while I return to the bedroom to change, pulling a jumper and jeans over my fleece nightshirt.

“Oh, Bloody Hell!” I mutter, shrugging on my coat. Can’t the children ever stay where they’re put?

McKibbon’s eyes are downcast when I open the door and she’s loitering uselessly in the hallway.

“Get back to your common room!” I snap, and it’s only once I’ve retrieved the miscreants, docked points, and seen them placed firmly back in their tower that I realize Severus Snape and I have more in common than I ever would have thought.

 

**May 1, 2006**

“Does it seem any different now that you’re viewing from it here?”

I smile, tightening my grip on the railing so that she won't she my hands shaking. “This isn’t the first time we’ve done this on the anniversary, Minerva.”

“Yes, but now you’re part of the staff.”

“Hogwarts has always felt like home, even when I was a child – does that sound strange?”

“Not at all. It’s always been home for me as well.”

 

**May 1, 2005**

“I don’t see any need to be there,” I say again, turning away from the floo.

“Hermione, you can’t just not go because Ron’s going to be there. I promise Ginny isn’t mad anymore, and – I need you. I need you there.”

“Fine,” I whisper, wondering why I’m always the one to give, always the one to accommodate Harry, and then I realize that he’s being honest, and he really does need me. I try to smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

**May 1, 2004**

“It’s a big decision, Hermione.”

“I know. But if he doesn’t understand why I need to do it, then maybe – Minerva, I can’t spend my whole life being the person Ron wants me to be.” I know this is the right decision because we're on the astronomy tower and I'm not even worried about the height, just convincing her to hire me. 

“Well you know if you want it it’s yours. I want you to be sure, though, if I’m to turn away the other candidates.”

“You know the library is the one place that can be a common room for all the houses. It should be – it can be – the heart of the school.”

“It’s a different sort of fulfillment,” she warns, “than success at the Ministry.”

“I know,” I lie, because I don’t, but I want this, and I’ll make it work. “But I think I can make a difference.”

 

**May 1, 2003**

“Ron, I have to work tomorrow. And the memorial –“

“Gabrielle is only here for three days and Bill and I promised! She’s never been to the Hog’s Head.”

I’m wearing fuzzy lounge pants and Crookshanks, who’s in no mood to sit anywhere but on my lap. My book sits on the side table, temporarily abandoned.

“Ron, just go. I’ll be here when you get home.”

“You’re never there for me when I need you, Hermione.”

He’s through the floo before I can tell him to fuck off. I didn’t leave him alone in a tent, did I?

 

**May 1, 2002**  

There are thick sobs coming from the corner of the kitchen, and then murmured voices. “I miss him, Ange”, and “I know George, I miss him too.”

And I realize that yes, Fred will always lie between them, but that’s the reason that there’s no one else on earth they’d rather be with than someone who understands that Fred will always have half their hearts, someone who accommodates the parts of themselves that they can’t describe, that are full of grief and loss.   
  
Is that what love is? Understanding?

Ron will understand me eventually, won’t he?

 

**May 1, 2001**

“And then Hermione conjured a vial –“

“I didn’t conjur it, Harry, it was lying on the floor.”

This is the first time we’ve ever spoken of it aloud, that night. We wrote and signed affidavits, but we’ve never described it. Ginny and Luna and Neville are gathered around the three of us, hanging on every word.

“Oh, anyway, she hands me the vial, and by that point he was weeping. Penseive silver, all of his –“

Harry’s voice cracks, and he swallows.

“So Harry put them in the vial, and we didn’t have much time, so –“ my voice cracks too, and it’s left to Ron to finish it.

“We left Snape there and ran back to the castle, and that’s where we – where we found Fred,” and now he’s out too. And none of us can finish and I begin to laugh and Ron laughs too and then finally Harry is laughing and Luna and Neville and Ginny are looking at the three of us like we’re mad.

 

**May 1, 2000**

“Do you remember it?” I ask, tucking the pillow underneath my head.

“Course. This is the first anniversary of when we made love.” He prods himself against me, insistently.

“Not that, Ron,” I whisper. I need him to stop, to hear me, to understand me, “the year before – the battle.”

He rolls off me, and away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Okay. Okay.

 

**May 1, 1999**

“I’m tired of waiting,” he says, and he moves his hands to my blouse, fumbling with the buttons. “Don’t you want me?”

A thump and a crash comes from my sitting room, followed by a trail of giggles. Ginny and Harry are doing God only knows what in there; they haven’t seen each other since Easter, and Ginny led us all up here to my rooms, shoved Ron and I into the bedroom and told us to ‘work things out’ and then locked the door. My nose scrunches at the thought of Harry and Ginny doing unspeakable things on my sofa. I cast a muffliato in response to a low grunt from behind the wall, and look back at Ron. I’m nervous and unsure.

 

**May 1, 1998**

“Look at me,” he whispers, but I can’t hear it, I’m only hearing it in my memory and outside there’s only the humming of hissed voices and the sound of scuffling as three pairs of footsteps head for the tunnel. I count to thirty. Beyond the walls there are booms that sound like thunder, or fireworks, but I know that it’s battle, that it’s death, that people I love, once loved, are dying.

I slam the time turner against the floor and it shatters.

I shrug off Harry’s cloak and wrap it around my arm and push open the door.

The smell of blood is overpowering in my memory and there in the room, and I’m living it all again but it’s different. I push the memories down under the surface, below the boil, and force myself to step forward. His eyes are fixed and glassy, but there’s still blood pulsing from his neck. There’s still a pulse.

I expel the breath I’ve been holding for minutes and bend over him, my hands slick with his blood as I pour the blood replenisher, the antivenin, the healing potions down his throat. I shove the bezoar in behind them, and I can feel the flaps of skin where his neck’s been torn open and my hands shake as I suture the arteries before trying to reassemble the skin. I pour dittany over it, hoping it will hold, cowering as Riddle’s voice rents the air.

“I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die –“

I gather him in my arms, palms slipping against the blood that covers his cloak and I can taste it because I tasted it once many years ago, will taste it again as I wipe my hand against my mouth in exhaustion later, when he's tucked in the bed and stable and the sun is high in the sky and I have the luxury of burying my head in my hands.

I hold the image of the cottage in my mind, Dumbledore’s safe house in East Coker, and raise my wand. The world spins.

 

**May 2, 2013**  

“Is she gone?” Somewhere, she's holding a battered skeleton of a man in her arms and begging the Gods for his life. I know this, remember it, but it's still strange to think that we're the same person. 

“Minerva’s awake.”

I stomp my foot and pump my fist in the air. “I knew it!”

“I told her I’d fetch you,” you say, a grin twitching your mouth and I love you, I love you, I love you.

I’m in your arms now and you’re holding me, spinning, and the Shrieking Shack is as I remember it, fresh and new after my…accident…and you’re kissing me and the world tilts and I’m home, we’re home.

“You’re not gone, foolish girl,” you say between kisses, “you’re right here.”

“And Harry?” I ask, burying my mouth against your neck.

“With Dumbledore,” you answer, but then there’s a voice in the doorway.

“I’m right here, Hermione.”

And I look over at Harry and I’ve missed him and he’s standing there with a strange expression on his face and I know that he knows and he forgives me.

And he opens his arms. I fly into them.

“You look like you’ve aged about fifteen years,” he whispers into my hair, and I laugh and I know, I know as I’ve always known, that I did the best I could to make the right decisions. “I hear you finally gave in and became a mum.”

Your hands are on my back and I am folded between you and Harry, and we are all unfolding, and in this moment, in every moment we open up to gather someone into our arms, we’re reborn.

Time bends, just as space does – and space bending is the essence of magic, of miracle.

Here, in this absolute joy, is the moment that was always, and always will be, the source of my patronus.

 

**May 2, 1998**

Time past and time future  
What might have been and what has been  
Point to one end, which is always present.

**May 2, 2012**

We must be still and still moving  
Into another intensity  
For a further union, a deeper communion  
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,  
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters  
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

**May 2, 1999**

The point of intersection of the timeless  
With time, is an occupation for the saint—  
No occupation either, but something given  
And taken, in a lifetime's death in love,  
Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.

**May 2, 2013**

Quick now, here, now, always—  
A condition of complete simplicity  
(Costing not less than everything)  
And all shall be well and  
All manner of thing shall be well  
When the tongues of flames are in-folded  
Into the crowned knot of fire  
And the fire and the rose are one.


End file.
